Why Me? A Love Story for Manic Depressives
by Dust Traveller
Summary: Vincent wanted very little after Meteor, just to pass into quiet obscurity. Unfortunately fate seldom relinquishes its favorite chewtoy, and he will find himself embroiled in the affairs of a country on the brink of civil war. Ain't life grand? VY
1. Waiting For Godo

Author's Note: Obviously I don't own the rights to Final Fantasy VII, but I'm pretty sure you guys are all aware of that. The usual disclaimers apply. Additionally, as the summary states, this is a Vincent/Yuffie fic, and while the genre is probably getting a bit too glutted by now, I feel I might be able to do at least a bit of justice to it. As such, bear with me. It's been a helluva long time since I've played the game, I don't own it anymore, though I wish I did, and I could very well make quite a few mistakes in portraying the world of FFVII. Your forbearance would be appreciated, and should you occasion to be a FFVII purist, consider yourself duly warned. The thing that has always been truely important to me in fanfiction is that the characters remain true to themselves, and if you can honestly say that any character is acting OOC, by all means bite my head off. I may not agree with you, but I WILL listen to your criticism, and apply it if it makes sense to me. That being said, as any writer, I do enjoy reviews, so please let me know what you think. On a personal note, Vincent was and always will be my favorite FFVII character, but you will note that the man doesn't do humor very well, at least not if he's going to remain in character. As such, most of the humor of this story will be forthcoming. Please bear with me.  
  
"I tried to kill my pain, but only bled more. I lay dying, and I'm pouring, crimson regret, and betrayal. I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming. Am I too lost, to be saved? Am I too lost? My god, my tourniquet, return to me salvation. My god my tourniquet, return to me salvation." Evanescence, Tourniquet  
  
Gather 'round children, I'm about to tell you a story. It's a good story, though truth be told, the tale is probably wearing a little thin for some of you, but it's important, so I'm gonna tell it again. One of the unfortunate duties of youth is to listen to the elderly, 'cause we do get so lonely, everything for us is in the past, and we love to combine our two favorite pastimes... remembering, and buggin' the hell outta youngsters.  
  
Don't roll your eyes at me, one day you'll understand. In the meantime, sit down and shut up.  
  
Once upon a time, there was an evil empire that was hellbent on destroying the world. Their crime wasn't a crime of hatred... nor of jealousy. Far worse, they raped the earth out of a willful ignorance, and a lack of regard. Perhaps, at first, they did what they did out of a genuine wish to better humanity, but as with all such empires, when the focus became the pursuit of power, and when the question being asked as new technology was developed stopped being should I do it and started being CAN I do it, they lost their place in the sun.  
  
As with all such empires, there arose a group of people who'd had enough, who decided to fight back. They were a misfit crew, such a group of oddballs as you'd never hope to see, but they had what it takes to take down any empire.   
  
The one thing that fuels our greatest triumphs and aspirations, that keeps our planet moving.  
  
No, not beer, smartass!   
  
I was talking about hope! Holy Planet, you youngsters with your alcohol and your lack of discipline... *sigh* Now you see what you made me do? I lost my place... now I'm gonna have to start all over again. Once upon a time, there was... what's that? Oh right... right... hope... group of oddballs... ok. Good. Just seeing if you were listening.  
  
Anyway, the Empire was understandably upset about the existence of a group of people who's purpose was to destroy them, and so it sent all manner of weapons against them. One of these weapons turned on its masters and destroyed them, and then turned it's attention to the planet. Why did it turn on them? Maybe it was a little too evil... maybe it was a little too crazy... or maybe, like its creators, it just didn't care about anything but itself. The end result was that this little group of oddball rebels, who'd lost comrades and suffered terrible trials, became an oddball group of saviors. Ultimately, hope won out over apathy, good triumphed over evil, and the planet was saved.  
  
Where the hell do ya think you're goin', kid? I ain't finished yet. The story ain't over until I say "the end".  
  
No, just "the end". That's all a story should ever end with.  
  
What kind of nonsense is that?   
  
"And they all lived happily ever after?" That's not an ending, and it's damn foolish to boot.  
  
No one gets a happy ending, kid. It's not natural to be happy forever. Sooner or later, if you follow a man's life, your gonna reach the end of it, and death is never happy. It's not as terrible as you think it is, but it certainly ain't a happy occasion.  
  
The lesson to be learned is this... happiness isn't forever, but neither is grief. When you find happiness, you latch onto it, and you spread it around... and that makes it all the more precious.  
  
That's one of the most important thing you can learn, child. That and this; happiness isn't forever, but love can be... and love and hope are just two sides of the same coin.  
  
That's where I'll start my real a tale... a story about a hero who's not a hero, a princess who's not a princess, and the lesson they learned...   
  
Some might say, quite in spite of themselves.  
  
***  
  
-Dust. It all comes back to dust- the traveler thought. His black boots were caked with it, the air seemed full of it, and if he looked inside, deep inside, which he seldom did anymore because the way was guarded by demons, he was at least subconsciously afraid that all he'd find there was dust.  
  
Dust in the shape of a heart.  
  
It was blisteringly hot, summer in full bloom, and an observer might have stared oddly at the traveler. He walked with a steady gait, one that could not be labeled as lazy, his long legs eating up the ground in graceful loping strides, but certainly not in any particular hurry, as though he had no place important to go. He kept his eyes on the road, ignoring the famed Wutai country-side as though its natural beauty was painful for him, though it would be foolish to think he was oblivious; the way he carried himself proved this illusion to be false.   
  
His clothing was ill-suited to a trek in the Wutai countryside in summer, black combat boots, black pants and long-sleeve black shirt, with a tattered red cloak thrown over the ensemble almost as an after thought, a cloak that partially hide his face but not his brooding eyes. The eyes of this traveler were quite striking... a most unnatural shade of red, like blood on snow in the paleness of his face. His only concession to the heat was a red headband to keep the sweat from his eyes, though truth be told, it was more likely to just to keep his hair out of his face should he have to move quickly. His arms he had folded inside the cloak, so that neither was visible, though it was doubtful this was to give them shade. The road to Wutai was not an overly dangerous one, though it certainly couldn't be called safe either, but the traveler's only (apparent) insurance against the perils of the unknown was a long barrel rifle slung across his back, its surface weathered but obsessively well cared for, unlike his travel-stained and well worn clothing. A series of uncongruous oddities that all added up to one enigmatic stranger.  
  
Vincent Valentine.  
  
***  
  
One might occasion to wonder what one of the heroes of Avalanche was doing living as a shiftless wanderer, alone and seemingly known to no one. It was not that he didn't have anywhere to stay, on the contrary, if Vincent considered anyone approaching what he would call friends, it was the other members of Avalanche, and any one of them would most likely have given the contrary gunman a place to rest his head. Certainly enough of them, Cloud and Tifa... Reeve... even the foul-mouthed pilot, had tentatively offered him a place to stay. He had, in his quiet, elusive way, turned them all down, and if they seemed both a bit saddened and relieved at the same time, he didn't blame them. He understood their trepidation; indeed, he shared it. Vincent's life was a tightrope of control... he was, after all, a man with very pushy inner demons, and they didn't always restrain themselves to tormenting only him.   
  
So it was that after the final destruction of Meteor and the death of Sephiroth, when the heroes of Avalanche scattered, some together, most individually, to the four winds, Vincent found himself alone again. Understandably, he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself, if anything, though he'd promised a concerned Tifa that he wouldn't return to that delapidated old mansion and the cold coffin contained within. This hadn't been a hard promise to make, Vincent had no intention of ever returning to that place. It was too full of memories... of old pain and encroaching madness, screams unheard in the dark, to be a comfortable place to spend eternity. Perhaps he was being selfish, putting all of his friends and countless innocents in danger by not locking himself away, but the former Turk couldn't face the ghosts the mansion held for him, of enemies and victims, Hojo and Lucrecia, and the price he'd paid, was still paying, for his lack of humanity.  
  
So he became a vagabond, a shadow that passed by for just a moment, haunting the roads and the wilds going no place in particular, and staying there for too fleetingly to make any lasting impressions. He survived on odd jobs... monsters here and there that needed killing, criminals on the run from one authority or another that needed catching... ultimately he fell back on the only thing he'd ever really been good at... hunting and killing.  
  
Though admittedly, this time his targets were monsters and scum. Sometimes you had to fight fire with fire, after all.  
  
Truthfully, he was getting a little tired of sleeping on the cold ground with only his own brooding thoughts for company. That and supplies were starting to run a little low. Not critically, but Vincent was nothing if not detail oriented, and he preferred being prepared over lying in a ditch somewhere.   
  
Wutai wasn't his first choice for a stopping point, but it wasn't his last choice either, and it was close. It'd have to do.  
  
***  
  
Approaching the gates of Wutai, he was once again struck by the city's character. It had a tidy aesthetic, a martial sort of charm, functional and orderly, but with graceful lines and pleasingly tasteful architecture. It was a city with a history, and it appealed to the need for organization and the sense of solemnity in Vincent's tired soul. He liked Wutai, if only because it seemed to move at a slower pace than the outside world.  
  
Something was wrong however, and Vincent picked up on this as soon as the city came into view. Guards, fearsome with their ceremonial armor and decorated but functional pikes, patrolled the walls, and there was a line to enter the city. Vincent waited patiently for his turn to enter, enduring the oppressive heat, and ignoring the curious stares of those ahead and behind him in line. He drew the wary eyes of both guards when he stepped forward for his turn.  
  
"Name please." One of them asked, the very picture of diligent authority. What was going on here?  
  
"Valentine." Was his short reply. The guard scribbled the name down in his log.  
  
"Reason for visiting?" the guard shifted uncomfortably. The tall stranger before him was pretty well armed... a bounty hunter or a mercenary, neither of which was very welcome in Wutai, especially now.  
  
Vincent considered ignoring the guard's question, but it occured to him that this man was only doing his job, and antagonizing the proper authorities was a good way to draw unwanted attention to one's self.  
  
"Supplies. A place to stay for the night." He muttered quietly.  
  
"We don't want any trouble, Mr. Valentine." The guard cautioned. "You keep that weapon where it's at, you hear?"  
  
Vincent nodded curtly and stepped past the guard, into the city itself.  
  
***  
  
The streets were silent, which, while a welcome change to the normal cacaphony that greeted his ears when he entered a city, did not ease his state of mind over much.  
  
Wutai was normally very friendly to travelers, as the Lord Godo Kisaragi had done his damnedest to turn the city into a hot tourism spot, with marginal success. After the events of Meteor, Godo had been quick to capitalize on his daughter's newfound fame (or infamy, depending on your point of view... while it was hard to stay angry at someone who'd saved the planet, it was also hard to forgive someone who'd been robbing people blind of their Materia since her preadolecence) and had even, so Vincent had heard, included her residence as one stopping points on the tours.   
  
Vincent idlly wondered how Yuffie had taken this particular arrangement.  
  
Today however, venders who would normally be trying to outshout one another for the pleasure of doing business with him were conspicuous in their absence, and the few passersby he encountered eyed him warily, as though they half expected him to begin firing his weapons randomly into buildings. He ignored these suspicious stares but noted them, and crossed the street to slip inside a reasonably priced drinking establishment.  
  
The dimly lit coolness of the taproom was a welcome change to the oppressive heat and atmosphere of the city's exterior. Vincent, never overly fond of social gatherings of any type (particularly lynch or torch-carrying mobs, but that's another story) nevertheless found himself almost comfortable in a bar's social setting. Here he was able to settle down to drink at his own pace, and let humanity's dull roar wash over him in an almost soothing murmur. Vincent was a good listener, and he entertained himself by listening to the various stories floating past him. Leaning Death Penalty against the side of the bar within easy reach, he quietly ordering a hot tea, and ignored the curious stares of the bartender and the various patrons who had watched him enter until they shrugged and returned to their various drinks. Receiving his tea, he wrapped his good hand around the pewter mug and brought it up to his lips, savoring the herbal scent that wafted up from it as he took a sip.  
  
This sort of quiet anonymity was about as close as Vincent came to enjoying himself.  
  
As usual, it was cut dismally short.  
  
Conversation stopped dead as a pair of guards entered the establishment and swept their serious gaze over the inside of the bar. Squinting from the sudden change in light level, they were nonetheless able to immediately pick out the solitary figure at the bar quietly sipping a jasmine tea.  
  
Vincent sighed inwardly as the guards made a beeline for him. He hadn't turned around when they entered, and he had hoped they'd simply stopped by for lunch.  
  
It was 3:00 pm, but one could hope, couldn't one?  
  
"Mr. Valentine?" One of the guards asked brusquely, as guards often do, when tasked with a duty they deem onerous.  
  
Vincent closed his eyes and breathed in the herbal scent again. "I haven't done anything wrong."  
  
The other guard started to open his mouth, irritation written across his features, but the older, wiser of the two stopped him with a hard look. The older guard sighed deeply and shook his head. "We never said you did. Lord Godo requests a moment of your time."  
  
"I stopped doing requests a long time ago." Vincent muttered quietly.  
  
"My apologies Mr. Valentine, but this is not a request that can be ignored, if you wish to remain a guest in our fair city." The guard returned.  
  
"Ah. One of those requests." he said, in a tone that might have been considered dry, if Vincent were a bit more vocally animated.  
  
The younger guard growled and reached for Vincent's shoulder. "Enough of this! Lord Godo wishes t-"  
  
He stopped dead when a skeletal, golden tinged claw encircled his wrist right before it touched the gunman's shoulder.   
  
"I heard you. Allow me to finish my tea in peace." Vincent said softly, his eyes still closed.  
  
The strength in the grip and the sharpness of the metal claws tipping the strange hand were not lost on the young guard, who gulped uneasily. "Er... certainly Mr. V-Valentine."  
  
Vincent released the man's wrist and the guard snatched his hand back as though he'd just put it in a behemoth's mouth.  
  
Vincent finished his tea in peace, but the quiet tranquility of the moment had vanished like a soap bubble in the rain.  
  
***  
  
Vincent had no sooner set down the empty mug when the guards began herding him towards the door. Quickly paying his bill, he picked up Death Penalty and shouldered it, then allowed himself to be ushered outside and down the stone streets to the large, pagoda style castle that was Lord Godo Kisaragi's place of residence. The trip passed in silence, the guards being sufficiently cowed by this strange individual in their charge, and Vincent was not exactly the sort for idle chitchat. Instead, he took note of the abundance of personal servants in various colors passing to and fro like worker bees on the fly. Several of the manor houses, normally empty during the hot summer months, looked fully operational, and more alarmingly, guards not wearing the colors of the Kisaragi clan patrolled them.  
  
All of this information was quickly noted, assessed, and filed away by the silent ex-Turk, who appeared to be doing a detailed study of his boot tops.  
  
Vincent was unsure what Lord Kisaragi wanted with him, but he was reasonably sure he wasn't going to like it. Unlike some of the other members of Avalanche, Vincent hadn't capitalized on his newfound fame, and over time, he'd faded into the background of the legend, which was the way he liked it. He felt uncomfortable being praised for ending a threat to the planet that he had more or less had a hand in creating, at least in his own eyes. While the name Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockheart were almost universally known, Vincent Valentine would raise very few eyebrows, if any.  
  
Still... perhaps it was just a social call. A passing interest in one of his daughter's former comrades-in-arms.   
  
Speaking of which... where was the aforementioned daughter? Not that Vincent felt any pressing need to see her, of course. She'd been one of the more annoyingly outspoken members of the group, and she had a nickname for him that irritated him to no end. Still, he admitted to at least a passing interest in how she had weathered the last two years... she would be what now... 17? 18?  
  
He was stopped outside the entrance to Godo's personal meeting chambers by a large Wutain martial artist, who stared at Vincent impassively with his large arms folded over his barrel chest.   
  
"You may leave your weapons with me," He rumbled immediately.  
  
Vincent eyed the man quietly, and to his credit, the large man did not wince from his oddly tinged gaze.   
  
The man narrowed his eyes. "You will not be permitted to enter Lord Godo's presence with those items on your person."  
  
Vincent continued to stare. "I wasn't the one who requested a meeting." He said finally, when it became obvious the man was not going to budge.  
  
The large man snorted, then cracked his knuckles menacingly. "If I have to take them from you, little man, you are going to regret it."  
  
Vincent sighed. He didn't care enough about staying in Wutai to put up with this, supplies and a warm bed or no. He started to turn on his heel, prepared to leave Wutai behind him, when a tired, gruff voice he vaguely recognized came from inside the room.  
  
"Let him in, Sung..."  
  
Sung blinked, then frowned. "But Lord-"  
  
"I trust this man implicitly Sung, let him through."  
  
Sung growled, but motioned Vincent in with a look that said if he so much as sneezed in Lord Kisuragi's presence, Sung was going to turn him into Vincent jelly. He then followed the gunman in and shut the door behind him, walking quickly past Vincent to stand at Lord Godo's side, glaring daggers all the while.  
  
Vincent ignored him.  
  
Lord Godo Kisaragi was a formidable man, but the last few years had aged him considerably. The weight of his years seemed to bow the man down, giving him a cramped, bent look, and lending a hollowed look to his craggy features. Vincent, no stranger to the sensation, thought he detected the sharp look of a pain so familiar it had become, if not an old friend, then at least a respected adversary, in the man's eyes.  
  
He didn't have to say it. He knew at least part of the mystery now.  
  
Lord Godo Kisaragi was dying.  
  
"Forgive my servant, Mr. Valentine. He is a bit overzealous at times, but regretfully his vigilance is not entirely unwarranted, in these troubled times." The hint of a rasp caught Vincent's ear. It was taking everything the Lord had to maintain the illusion of health, but he wasn't fooling the observant ex-Turk.   
  
"Please, have a seat." The lord motioned to a chair. Vincent didn't particularly feel like lounging in such a tense place, but he was perceptive enough to realize that the Lord wouldn't sit unless his "guest" was seated, so he took it reluctantly. Some of his hesitance must have shown, for the Lord sank into his own chair eyeing Vincent gratefully.  
  
"Again, forgive my interruption of your enjoyment of our fair city, but I could not risk the chance that you would leave before I had an opportunity to speak with you, Mr. Valentine."  
  
Vincent said nothing, but appeared to be listening receptively.  
  
After a short pause, Godo leaned forward and clasped his hands together before his mouth, eyeing the gunman resolvedly. "I'll cut to the point, Mr. Valentine, as time is not a luxury I can afford. I have heard that you have sometimes taken on the role of a Bounty Hunter of late... I trust my information is accurate?"  
  
Vincent nodded curtly, his face a study in blankness.  
  
"I have need of your services. The very future of Wutai is at stake." he sighed, stifling a cough. Sung looked at him concernedly. "I am of course willing to compensate you for your work."  
  
Vincent sighed. "Who do you want me to track down?" He said bluntly.  
  
Sung looked like he was about to have an apoplexy over Vincent's lack of concern for the proper honorifics, but at Godo's slightly raised hand he settled for simply looking like a bomb about to explode.  
  
Godo caught Vincent's gaze with his own and frowned. "My daughter."  
  
***  
  
If Vincent was surprised to hear who he was supposed to bring to justice, he gave no sign. His only indication that this was an unexpected twist was a slight hesitancy before his next question.  
  
"What has she done?" He said simply.  
  
Godo stood painfully and eased his way over to one of the windows, gazing out at the grounds outside the castle. "Look at them... circling like wolves scenting a lame, sick, old buck."  
  
Vincent watched him quietly, waiting for an answer to his question. The old man continued, as though unmindful of his guest's expectations.  
  
"Well I'm not dead yet. Not... *hack* yet." He coughed lightly, then turned back to face Vincent. "Not what she's done... what she hasn't done."  
  
Godo frowned. "How much do you know about Wutai, Mr. Valentine? Specifically, the lines of succession?"  
  
Vincent frowned. His mother had been of Wutainese descent, but she had not taught him much about the people she'd left behind when she'd followed his father to Midgar. What he did know was simply what he could glean over the long years of his employment as a Turk, and what he'd heard Yuffie speak of. "Not much. I know that power has been in the Kisaragi line for hundreds of years... that some mastery of martial arts is required... that's about it."  
  
Godo grimaced. "You know more than most. The Lord of Wutai is choosen from a small group of families who can trace their lineage back to the first settlers who were granted this land by Lord Leviathan, a thousand years ago. Those who would accept the mantle of Lordship must prove themselves capable of the extreme mental and physical dedication required of a Da-Chao master. In essence, to master All Creation." A look of pride crossed his face. "Yuffie, at 16, was the youngest ever to master the technique."  
  
Vincent nodded almost imperceptively, and Godo continued. The look of pride had vanished behind a sudden wave of sadness.  
  
"However, being only 16, she had not yet reached her majority. She could not take the position at the time. In addition, she was deeply embroiled in the fate of the planet, but there is no need to recount that tale to you. It was... understood, that upon her 18th birthday, Yuffie Kisaragi would succeed me as the 19th Kisaragi Lord of Wutai."  
  
Vincent frowned. He couldn't remember Yuffie saying anything about this. She must have kept the information to herself pretty well. Not that Vincent could blame her, really.  
  
"Imagine my surprise when the day of her 18th birthday comes around, and there is neither hide nor hair of her to be found in all of Wutai, save a makeshift rope made of blankets leading out her window, and a sudden large number of mastered Materia mysteriously vanishing." he continued wryly, with the air of a man laying his cards on the table.  
  
Vincent raised an eyebrow. "Why me?" he said simply.  
  
Godo sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "I will admit you are not my first choice. I would have preferred to keep this matter in Wutai hands... it is... a source of embarassment for our people." He looked at Sung quietly, and the man looked resigned.  
  
"However, while you are not the first person to be asked to accept this burden, you are the only one who I have any hope will succeed at it."  
  
Vincent raised an eyebrow, then looked pointedly at Sung.  
  
Godo cleared his thoat and looked at Sung. "Show him, Sung."  
  
Sung blanched and looked as though his Lord had just asked him to do a jig naked. "Lord..." he choked out.  
  
Godo did not ask again, he simply fixed his servant with a glare.  
  
Sung sighed and lowered his head in defeat.  
  
Then he turned around and dropped his pants.  
  
Vincent blinked.  
  
Taking up most of the large man's pale right buttock was the message, 'You'll never take me alive, coppers!', Followed by a hastily scrawled (but amazingly legible, considering the medium) doodle of someone giving an extremely insulting gesture and grinning catlike at the reader.   
  
A simple author's mark, -Y, displayed the evidence of the man's embarassment.  
  
"As you can see, as formidable as Sung is... my daughter proved to be slightly more... resourceful." Again, that note of pride.  
  
Vincent fixed him with a very expressive look.  
  
It said basically, "This is the person you want running Wutai?"  
  
Godo sighed. "I think the point has been made, Sung."  
  
Sung hastily raised his pants and studiously avoided looking at anyone in the room. Vincent was now able to account for the man's stiff-legged posture.  
  
After moment's hesitation, Vincent frowned. "I still don't see why you want me to do it. Yuffie and I fought together, it's true, but we weren't exactly close. What makes you think I have any more insight into her then him?" he glanced in Sung's direction.   
  
It was a testiment to Vincent's closedmouthedness that this was longest speech he'd made in months.  
  
Godo eased himself into the chair again and closed his eyes. "I thought about contacting the other members of Avalanche about this, but ultimately, it was a Wutain matter... by the time in became grave enough to look to outside help, my hands were already tied."  
  
Godo opened his eyes again and stared at Vincent levelly. "Any one of the other members of Avalanche might be able to find her, Mr. Valentine, but none of them are here. Further, they all have their own pursuits and matters of importance. Mr. Reeve is trying to rebuild Midgar, just as Mr. Wallace has his duties in Corel. Mr. Strife and Ms. Lockheart have settled down in Kalm, they have a business to tend. Mr. and Mrs. Highwind are expecting a child soon... and Nanaki is far too important to risk on this matter- he is last of his kind, and guardian of the eternal flame."  
  
Godo's eyes became distant as he talked. "Wutai needs a leader, Mr. Valentine. Any power vacuum created when I am gone will not be easily filled- there is no one else in the direct line of succession. Wutai would be torn apart by civil war... but my countrymen do not see this. No... worse... they see it as an opportunity." His face hardened.  
  
"There are those who do not wish Yuffie to be found. If I called any one of the more prominant members of Avalanche to Wutai, my enemies would know what reason they were being called for, and they would do anything in their power to hinder their search. No, Mr. Valentine... like it or not, you are the only one I can trust in this matter."  
  
Vincent still felt extremely skeptical, and Godo apparently saw this in his face. He took a sideways glance at Sung, then frowned. "Sung!" He barked hoarsely.  
  
"Yes, Lord?" Sung looked at his leader intently.  
  
"Leave us please."  
  
"Lord-"  
  
"Do not make me repeat myself, boy." Godo muttered quietly, his eyes closed.  
  
Sung blanched again, then, with a glare at Vincent that said Godo's safety was Vincent's only chance at leaving this room alive, he stiffly walked to the door and let himself out.  
  
Godo sagged wearily into his chair, pain now written into every line and crease of his face. It was as though his body were being suspended by so many strings, and about half of them had just been severed. He sighed deeply.  
  
Vincent waited quietly, his face betraying, as usual, none of his thoughts.  
  
"I do not know how to convince you of the importance of this mission, Mr. Valentine. Perhaps it is an internal matter, perhaps I am making a mistake in involving an outsider... but I do not think this the case."  
  
He forced himself to sit up straighter and caught Vincent's Mako tainted eyes, trying to hold him by sheer force of will. Gone was the funny old man who had teased and laughed at Yuffie's antics...   
  
Pain and the need for urgency had stripped the humor from him. Vincent found himself strangely saddened by this evidence of mortality.  
  
"Wutai has ever been proud of its self reliance, Mr. Valentine, but as with anything taken too far, it has become a stumbling block. One that could mean the destruction of everything we know."  
  
He took a deep breath and continued. "We have become locked in our traditions, refusing to grow, refusing to change... and the rest of world passes us by. We stood up proudly to Shinra, and their strong arm tactics, and look where it got us. A generation of our brightest and best minds lost to a stiff necked war fought between the greatest technological juggernaut this world has ever seen... and a backwater empire too stubborn to know when they were beaten."  
  
His lips were touched by a wry smile. "Wutai is now a kingdom of oldsters who believe if they stick their heads deep enough into the sand, the rest of the world will forget them, and a generation of youngsters too proud and willful to listen to the few level heads willing to speak up."  
  
"Our kingdom is dying, Mr. Valentine. It is choking itself to death with its own ignorance."  
  
Vincent watched the old man intently. He'd surmised the same, but it was none of his concern if Wutai was too stubborn to accept the truth.  
  
He was extremely knowledgeable in the area of self-delusion, after all.  
  
"That is the reason I tried to turn Wutai into a tourism spot, Mr. Valentine. To bring in new blood... new ideas. To revitalize our country... make it strong again... to show the world that there is something worth saving here... and to get our children used to the idea that they are a part of a world community."  
  
"Whether or not I have failed... whether I was wrong... remains to be seen. I doubt very much I shall see the change in my lifetime. I doubt it very much indeed." He sighed.  
  
Vincent did not argue with him.  
  
"Ultimately that more then anything else, is why I sent my daughter out on her fool's errand. As though Materia, no matter how powerful, could make this country strong again... like a magical Cure All." He chuckled. "No Mr. Valentine... I wanted her to experience the outside world... to understand it, and not to fear it... to even... perhaps, love it a little."  
  
"Somewhere in it all though, I failed miserably... not as a leader, but as a father. Too much duty thrust on her... too much responsibility... and not enough love..." he sighed regretfully. "It was too easy to let the years pass without having to deal with the hard confrontations... the truth is Mr. Valentine... she reminds me so much of her mother that it sometimes hurts to look at her." He looked deeply ashamed. "Now my country sits on the brink of ruin, and if it falls... it will be my fault, and my fault entirely."  
  
He was looking older and older by the minute. Vincent thought he could detect a hint of grief in the man's voice... of a relationship tainted by bitterness on both sides... and a deep and abiding guilt for that bitterness. It made him uncomfortable, but he listened nonetheless.  
  
"Its only hope rests on the thin shoulders of a very willful, very stubborn, very angry and confused young girl... excuse me, young woman, who has had to grow up far too quickly. It's not fair, and it's not right that it should be so, but it is. She has a responsibility to her country, Vincent Valentine. You must make her see this."  
  
Vincent watched the old man for a moment, then slowly shook his head. This was none of his business... this fight between a dying old man and his willful daughter. Kingdom or no, Godo was forgetting one important detail in all of this.  
  
Yuffie Kisaragi was not one to be forced into something she did not want to do. No, she'd chosen her path.  
  
Wutai would survive... it had for centuries, and it would for centuries. Vincent was sure of that. It certainly wouldn't benefit from the sort of salvation a monster with too much blood on his hands could give it.  
  
"I'm sorry, Lord Kisaragi, but I am not the one you want for this."  
  
Godo hid his disappointment well, but nonetheless it showed in the dullness of his eyes. He smiled sadly.  
  
"I wish you would reconsider, Mr. Valentine, but my days of pushing people around are long gone, I'm afraid. Besides, I very much doubt that you are the sort to be easily moved, once you've set your course."  
  
Vincent couldn't argue with that. He gathered up his rifle as Godo stood, groaning quietly.  
  
"Never allow yourself to get old, Mr. Valentine. The discounts it entitles you to aren't worth all the bother, let me tell you." He winced sharply as he moved his stiff body.  
  
Vincent refrained from informing him that he was probably as old, if not older, then the wizened old man before him.  
  
"Please... Mr. Valentine, stay at my home for the night at least. Compensation, for you wasted time."  
  
"That is not-"  
  
"Please... allow me at least to ease my conscience this much. Indulge an old man."  
  
Vincent sighed. "As you wish."  
  
The two walked out of the meeting room together in silence, each a prisoner of his own thoughts.  
  
***  
  
After the tense meeting with Godo, the solitary comfort of the spacious room that the Lord Kisaragi had provided for him was a welcome relief from his troubles. Vincent rested fully clothed with his hands behind his head, staring at the spotless ceiling from the comfort of the futon provided. He mulled the conversation (Such as it was. Conversations with Vincent tend to be rather one-sided.) over and over in his head, putting together the evidence he'd gathered from his observations with the things that Lord Godo had spoken of. Try as he might, he could find no way to refute what the aged Lord had revealed to him... when he died, if Yuffie was not immediately on hand to fill the gap, Wutai would dissolve into a mass of infighting. It was impossible to predict what the state of Wutai would be when it finally ended, but the inescapable fact was that the new rulers would be the ones with the bloodiest hands.  
  
This made Vincent uncomfortable.  
  
On the other hand, Vincent understood the need for freedom that must have burned in Yuffie's soul. Such a terrible responsibility to foist off on a young woman. Vincent had always viewed the ninja as he would a butterfly... beautiful, flitting from place to place... a creature of sunshine and laughter... but if one were to capture it in an uncaring hand, the beautiful pigments that adorned its wings would rub off and fade over time, and ultimately the thing of beauty would become tattered, dull, and finally dead.  
  
This also made Vincent uncomfortable.  
  
Not for the first time today, he wished he'd chosen a different city to visit.  
  
The soft, muffled scrape of leather on stone broke his train of thought, and he frowned, trying to locate the source of the sound. A normal human being wouldn't have been able to pick out the almost imperceptible noise, but Vincent hadn't been a normal human being for a long time. Drawing Peacemaker from under his cloak, he checked to ensure it was loaded, then blew out the lamp that provided the dim light to the room. Pitch blackness surrounded him, but it took only a few moments for his mako enhanced eyes to adjust.   
  
Another scrape, one that he almost missed, and then the sound of a wooden window cover being drawn slowly back drew his immediate attention. He waited, a nondescript shadow among shadows, his breath easing in and out with a slowness that no human being could have matched. Several tense minutes passed, minutes that seemed like hours, as the intruder hesitated, apparently confused by the state of the room.  
  
Finally who ever it was committed itself, and a black garbed individual, his or her face fully covered, slipped into the room looking this way and that, making no sound that even Vincent could detect.   
  
Vincent was impressed.   
  
But he still drew back the hammer of the revolver and in one smooth motion pointed it at the figure's head. At the telltale sound the figure froze in a crouch, now oriented towards Vincent and the noise he'd made.  
  
"Don't move." Vincent cautioned.  
  
The figure remained stock still, but its breathing increased rapidly.... and its muscles tensed. Vincent sensed it was preparing to spring.  
  
"Don't do it." He warned.  
  
Vincent was a firm believer in action, reaction... cause and effect. One event inevitably causes another. As soon as he pointed Peacemaker at the figure's head, the outcome was simple... if the figure followed his instructions, it would live. If it did not...  
  
A split second reaction saw the figure jerk forward, a small razor sharp knife coming halfway out of its hidden sheath....  
  
A hair later, the resounding blast of the large bore revolver, so impossibly massive that it would have broken a normal man's wrist to fire it, echoed loudly in the small room. The figure was tossed back violently by the force of the bullet, and dropping the knife, it stumbled into the wall to drop out of the open window.  
  
It never made a sound.  
  
Vincent strode over to the window and glanced outside, but the dusk made spotting the dark clothed corpse impossible at this distance. Vincent's night vision was damn good, but it wasn't THAT good. Bending down, he picked up the small knife and examined it intently. A strange symbol adorned it's hilt, one that he did not recognize. Any other observations would have to come later, as at that moment the door burst open and Sung lumbered into the room, his fists raised.  
  
"I heard gunfire!! What's going on in here?" He thundered.  
  
Vincent lowered his revolver from the ready position he'd had it in covering the door and holstered it in one smooth, practiced motion.  
  
"You heard a single gunshot. It was me." He said matter-of-factly.  
  
Sung narrowed his eyes. "I know that! I meant what were you firing at?"  
  
Vincent stared at him a long time, then looked away. He didn't trust this person... something about him struck him as false, and it was obvious that Godo didn't hold him in the strictest of confidences either. He prevaricated. "Nothing. It was an accident."  
  
Sung looked suspicious. "An accident? You expect me to believe that?"  
  
Vincent began to move so suddenly that Sung couldn't react fast enough to stop him as he stepped past the irrate martial artist and towards the door. "Believe what you will."  
  
"WHAT!! YOU-" Anything more, Vincent missed as he quickly made his way out into the courtyard of the castle.  
  
***  
  
Doubtlessly, someone had just tried to have Vincent killed. This struck Vincent as odd, as he'd only just gotten out of a meeting who's contents were supposed to have been a secret. Supposed to have been, but apparently were not... at least, not entirely. The more that Vincent thought about it, the more he began to suspect who had been leaking information to Godo's enemies. Sung hadn't been present for his refusal of Godo's proposition, but he had been there for its initiation. It stood to reason that Sung had assumed he'd accepted the task, as he was now staying in the castle, because there was no reason to try to kill him if they'd known the truth. So either Sung was a traitor, or he was an idiot, either of which was deadly dangerous, in this game of Houses.  
  
Vincent would have put his money on the latter, were he a gambling man.  
  
As he'd suspected, by the time he arrived at the location where the body would have fallen, it was already gone. There wasn't even any blood... no impression in the soft dirt. Not even a blade of the dry grass was out of place.  
  
Impressive.  
  
While Vincent was not overly concerned with the fact that someone had just tried to kill him, he was nevertheless concerned. Someone felt that the young Lady Kisaragi's absence should be elevated from a temporary problem to a permanent solution. If they were willing to order the death of a member of Avalanche simply because he was preparing to look for the wayward ninja... what of the ninja herself?  
  
-Wait a minute Vincent. Stop that train of thought.- he commanded himself. -You were never planning on going after Yuffie, remember? Also, they might not know you were a member of Avalanche... you didn't exactly announce yourself. A nameless bounty hunter can vanish pretty easy, especially one that few people saw enter the town.-  
  
But if Sung is a traitor, or even if he just has a big mouth... Godo HAD known who he was, and had been quite free with his name. What if they did know?  
  
Worse... what if Yuffie doesn't know people are coming to kill her?   
  
-Do you want her blood on your hands as well? Because you were too afraid of getting involved?-  
  
He sighed. Things were rapidly getting out of hand.  
  
***  
  
-Well- Vincent thought to himself, as a soft knock sounded on the door. -If that's another assassin, they're getting alot bolder.-  
  
He got up and went to the door, wondering how people got any sleep around here, what with all the intrigue flying around. Sliding open the door, he peered out into the hall, and was greeted by a small man with greasy black hair and the most false looking smile Vincent had ever had the misfortune to witness. Like a bad actor in an equally bad drama, he looked studiously left, then right, and putting his hand against his cheek loudly whispered.  
  
"Mr. Valentine, we need to talk. Privately... the walls have eyes."  
  
Vincent blinked. He wasn't exactly sure what the visual capability of the walls had to do with them SPEAKING together privately, but he got the jist. This also blew his whole, "perhaps they don't know you're a former member of Avalanche" theory out of the water. He sighed inwardly.  
  
"Come in."  
  
After the man had settled himself in and checked to ensure they were alone (obviously so... in a manner that could have been considered insulting, had Vincent not already decided this man was an idiot). He grinned his flagrantly false grin again.  
  
"I represent certain... parties, who have an interest in matter you have decided to undertake."  
  
This was news to Vincent, but he decided to play along. He watched the man warily.  
  
"While we appreciate the manner in which the Kisaragi line has accomplished it's duties thus far, we think perhaps it is time for a more... traditionally minded family to step up to the challenge of leadership." He smiled and nodded, apparently agreeing with himself.  
  
Vincent remained silent.  
  
"It's not that we have any reservations about Lord Godo you understand, but he'd getting old, and he's not exactly in the best of health, anymore. Why, something could happen to him, Leviathan forbid, but we dare not discount the possibility. We need long term stability, and Godo cannot provide that."  
  
Vincent was getting tired of this. He had a feeling the man could speak in ephemisms all night, if Vincent let him. "What do you want me to do?"  
  
The man never missed a beat. "Get rid of the Kisaragi girl. We don't care how. We will double whatever Godo is paying you."  
  
Vincent gave the illusion of considering his offer, when in actually he wanted to shoot this man on the spot.  
  
"I don't make deals with people who try to kill me." He said softly, after a short pause. He was testing out a theory.  
  
The man didn't even try to deny it. "Oh come now... we had to see if you could do what we ask! If you can't take care of one measily assassin, how could you deal with a da-chao master? And you succeeded so admirably!" He grinned benevolently and rubbed his hands together, as though imagining Vincent's confrontation with Yuffie now.  
  
Vincent felt slightly sick. "I think you should leave now."  
  
The man lost his smile. "But what about my offer-?"  
  
"Leave. Now." He didn't yell, but the man apparently heard the ultimatum in his voice. He paled, but snarled and stood up, jerking open the door angrily.  
  
"You'll regret this, Mr. Valentine." He growled, then disappeared into the night.  
  
"I already do." Vincent said, to no one in particular.  
  
***  
  
Godo was going over some papers late in the night when he suddenly realized he was not alone. To his credit, he simply widened his eyes a bit, then relaxed when he realized who it was.  
  
"So, Mr. Valentine. What brings you here at so late an hour."  
  
Vincent tossed the knife onto his desk and frowned. "Someone tried to kill me."  
  
Godo looked down at knife and sighed. "I'm glad to see they failed." He picked up the knife and examined it. "Katsura make. Very nasty. You are an impressive man, Mr. Valentine."  
  
Vincent narrowed his crimson eyes. They glittered dangerously. "You knew this was going to happen."  
  
Godo never skipped a beat. "I suspected as much. You had a visitor as well, I assume? How much did they offer?"  
  
Vincent sighed. "Double what you're paying me."  
  
Godo chuckled. "It would be amusing if they knew that I haven't offered you anything yet."  
  
Vincent didn't laugh.  
  
Godo's face became deadly serious. "Do you see now what I have to deal with? What is at stake here?"  
  
Vincent closed his eyes. "I assume not all of the families are as... inept in their plotting as the Katsuras."  
  
Godo nodded. "They're the most volatile... the most easily startled. Rather like a boar startled from the brush, to be honest. The others are a bit more... subtle."  
  
"Yuffie is in danger." Vincent voiced his thoughts aloud.  
  
Godo sighed. "The throne is the only safe place for her Vincent. Here she has friends... supporters... out there she has nothing but enemies. They cannot afford to allow her to live."  
  
Vincent shook his head. -Well what are you going to do, Valentine?- He thought bitterly. -Once again you have an opportunity to save a life. For all of her faults, Yuffie has a bright and noble soul. Can you honestly wash your hands of this? Are you going to let her down? Are you going to let all of them down?-  
  
He closed his eyes, allowing himself a brief moment of self pity. -No matter what I do, I seem unable to avoid becoming entangled in other's affairs. Now I am drowning in a sea of trouble, and there is no shoreline in sight. What do I do? Ignore her plight? Or entangle myself further?-  
  
It wasn't really a choice at all.   
  
"I'll need supplies. A chocobo... a fast one." He muttered quietly.  
  
"You'll get them. Anything you need. When will you leave?" Godo seemed more animated, more alive. His eyes gleamed as though he'd won a great victory.  
  
"Tonight. There is no point in delaying." He answered.  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Valentine. You have saved my kingdom and my daughter. (Vincent noted the unconscious emphasis on importance Godo had created when he mentioned his country first) Anything you wish... you may have." He practically bounced, and why shouldn't he? It seemed as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.  
  
"Just the supplies and the chocobo will do." Vincent said. A bit wearily.  
  
For the burden had been placed upon him.  
  
-Damn you, Godo... and damn me.-  
  
*** 


	2. Faster Kisaragi, Steal Steal!

"They target you with their eyes, and move with their lips, and it drags you in. She shuts you down with her voice again, and now, are you listening? This song, goes out ta girls though we haven't met just yet, this song's for stupid girls, who think that every boy is all about them. About them." -A Newfound Glory, These Girls Are Crazy  
  
She was on the run again.  
  
This statement begs clarification. Yuffie Kisaragi had spent a vast majority of her admittedly short life on the run from one thing or another. It wasn't that she was a coward... oh no, not that. Anyone who can spend four and a half hours suspended upside down by her crossed ankles over a drop that would have made Evil Knevil shout "are you fucking nuts!?" For two fire and an ice materia might be considered lacking in something, but whatever it was, it wasn't bravery.   
  
They also had to have extremely strong ankles and a tolerance for blood rushing to one's head, but that's beside the point.  
  
Yuffie Kisaragi does not make a habit of examining her feelings over much. Much the opposite in fact, she has a tendancy to blurt out what she's feeling before she even realizes she was feeling it, and if she analyzed it at all, it was purely in retrospect... a sort of reflexive, mental excuse me, like "Whoa... where the hell did that come from? Maybe I'm eating too much cheese."   
  
Things that bothered her she ignored, simply put it in a filing cabinet in her mind labeled "icky" and let it slide past her. She had more important, less boring (the distinction between the two is hazy for Yuffie... yes saving the planet was important, but it was also never boring.) things to do.   
  
A psychiatrist would have had a field day with her, had he not been driven into a homicidal rage by her inability to sit still.  
  
Perhaps that was it, really. Perhaps, if one were to analyze the facts, if one were to look into her past and see it for what it was... a father who bent further and further under the anxieties of running a kingdom, never fully recovering from the grief of losing his wife... A mythical mother figure only dimly remembered, spoken of wistfully as a warrior woman who's battle prowess was legendary, until she let herself be tied down... The endless boring responsibilities lumped upon her... the freedom of being your own mistress... perhaps when one put all of this evidence together, one might realize that if she feared anything, it was being chained to one place for too long... being forced to grow up, and shoulder one's responsibilities, was one more step down the inevitable path of banality, one more nail in the coffin lid.  
  
Yuffie's thoughts on the matter were amazingly simple, poignant, and alot less full of pretentious bullshit.  
  
"You'll never take me alive coppers."  
  
Admittedly, she is not the most philosophical of individuals.  
  
Since she had spent a majority of her life on the run, it stands to reason that she was also very good at it. If Yuffie didn't want to be found, then she wouldn't be, it was a simple as that. If she was found, it was because she wanted you to find her.   
  
Or because she was looking for you.  
  
Or because she was flat friggin' broke, and she was after some cash to get stuff she needed.   
  
Hey... even a ninja's gotta eat.  
  
***  
  
With Shinra out of the picture, and with the world still warily peeking its head out from under the covers, wondering if the end was here even after two years, it was a reasonable assumption to say that lawlessness was at an all time high. Countries who had once relied on Shinra for their protection (whether they wanted to or not) found themselves in the unenviable position of having to defend themselves, and most of them lacked the ability to coordinate their efforts to quell the rise of crime and disorder that came in the wake of Meteor. Looting had been commonplace during those terrible last days, when Meteor had loomed ever closer in the sky, and quite a few of those looters had devoloped a taste for the art of the five finger discount. It was a relatively easy thing to avoid capture. With the shut down and destruction of the Mako reactors, the world had become a primitive place forced to look to alternate, and inevitably crude, means of power.   
  
Means that did not require the draining of the planet's lifeblood.   
  
Computers were but a fond memory, and communication between law enforcement efforts from city to city, country to country, was nonexistant. Criminals wanted in one country had only to move to a different location and they were home free, at least, until they broke the law again. Bounty hunters alleviated this somewhat, but bounty hunters were expensive, unreliable, and sometimes as downright lawless as the criminals they sought... little better than hired killers.   
  
Midgar, with its forward thinking mayor, had started a licensing and registration program for bounty hunters, but this practice, though wise, hadn't quite caught on yet. It was an unpredictable and strange time, a time when every country was a frontier again, along with the problems that any frontier inevitably generated, so it was not too uncommon to see semi-permanent "bandit camps", really crude fortresses, popping up in the most inaccessable, inconvieniently placed locations around the globe. They were generally armed to the teeth, there being a disturbing amount of displaced and disgruntled ex-Shinra service members, most of whom were somewhat deficient in the morality department. Additionally, Shinra equipment and war machines were everywhere... so common place that one could, in some poorer parts of the world, trade a Shinra rifle in for only a good meal... maybe a place to stay for the night if one were lucky. As such, no one had the requisite death wish needed to attack the well-defended, well hidden bases, much LESS steal from them.  
  
No one SANE that is.  
  
Enter Yuffie Kisaragi, the ninja, or as she is sometimes known, She Who Redefineth the Term, "What in the hell were you THINKING?!"  
  
***  
  
Deep in Gongaga jungle, in a place only recently invaded by man, one of the aforementioned fortresses sat peacefully in the gloom. Nightfall had come and gone, and now the fortress was at that dangerous time for any building defended since time immemorial, that time when the night watch has stopped being overly vigilant and started being overly sleepy. Men passed by on the high wooden palisade wall muttering to one another or themselves, following a path that had become routine in its boredom. Somewhere inside the fortress, the faint sounds of large animals settling themselves down to rest penetrated the tenebral gloom.  
  
Just after the guard passed the midpoint on the wall, a shadow detached itself from its surroundings and crept up to the base of the palisade wall.  
  
One might be asking oneself how a shadow can suddenly decide to move by itself.   
  
One might also ask oneself how a shadow moves by itself and giggles quietly at its own sneakiness too, but we shall over look this little transgression, as by now you are probably quite aware of the fact that this is no ordinary shadow.  
  
The shadow resolved itself into a short, lithe silouette crouching at the base of the wall. Waiting for several heartbeats, as though timing something, the figure suddenly exploded upward like a cork shot from a bottle, only soundlessly. It landed on the palisade wall, then immediately rolled forward off the wall and into the fortress courtyard (such as it was). Pausing for a moment as though scenting the air, it then made a beeline for a half dozen crude-looking shacks in the northwest corner of the grounds.  
  
Several loud, crude male voices caused the figure to pause for a moment, as it braced up against one of the buildings. Sneaking a peek at a lit spot between two of the shacks, the figure quietly watched what appeared to be a poker game between four bandits.  
  
More importantly, it watched the piles of 500 gil coins the bandits were using as chips.  
  
-The ninja's greatest assets are stealth and trickery- the figure thought to itself, as it crouched so low an observer might have winced, then scrambled up to the table and impossibly, underneath it.  
  
Bil grinned nastily behind his cards and glanced at each of his fellow players. He was pretty sure Macky was bluffing, and he knew Tom and Seth were holding nothing because of a strategically placed mirror. He was also pretty sure the other members of the game were cheating, but since he was too, and since he couldn't prove it, he played dumb.  
  
He was still watching his opponents intently though, as he was sure they were watching him, and so he completely missed the small hand that quietly reached up and snatched his pile of gil.  
  
Reaching down to pick up a 500 gil piece, never taking his eyes off his opponents, he reached around blindly for the pile he knew was there. Only... it wasn't there... or there... or... hey! He looked down and blinked several times, then back up, his face a sudden rictus of suspicion and anger.  
  
"Alright! Who's the wise ass?" He roared.  
  
The other players blinked and looked at him, faces paling. All of them HAD been cheating, and not noticing the gil on their opponent's pile was missing, they were each suddenly sure he was referring to them.  
  
Macky blinked. "I-I got no idea what yer talkin' about, Bil." he chuckled uneasily.  
  
Bil glowered at him. "Did you do it?"  
  
Macky frowned. "Do what, Bil?"  
  
"DID YOU TAKE MY GIL, YOU ASSHOLE!"  
  
Macky blinked. "Uh... no way, Bil. It was right in front of you, and all my gil's right here, see-" He blinked.  
  
His gil was not right there. It hadn't even left a note. His lower lip trembled.  
  
"What the fuck!" he stood up, turning to his companions.  
  
Bil followed him, glaring as well.  
  
Their companions stared at them both as though they'd grown another head apiece.  
  
Seth put his cards down and calmly looked up. "You were watching all of us like hawks, both of you. You KNOW we didn't take your stash."  
  
Bil glowered. "Well who DID then?"  
  
Seth shrugged. "Maybe you dropped it. Or maybe..." he let the statement hang.  
  
Bil snarled. "You think I'm lying?!"  
  
Seth narrowed his eyes. "All I'm sayin' is, you been losing all night... maybe you decided it was time to cut your losses... and Macky's too."  
  
Macky was now staring at Bil suspiciously.  
  
Bil slammed his hands on the table. "All I know is I've been playin' with a bunch of cheatin' bastards, and-" He stopped, staring at the table where his hand had just slammed.  
  
The other bandits stared as well. Under his fist, as though it had fallen from his sleeve, a joker lie accusingly staring up at him.  
  
He paled. Where the hell had that come from... he didn't have any Jokers up his sleeve...  
  
Aces maybe, but jokers? hell no!  
  
"Uh..." he started. The others were still staring at the joker.  
  
Seth was the first to recover. "We're cheatin', huh?"   
  
Macky didn't wait for an explanation. He grabbed Bil's throat and began throttling the life out of him. "Gimme back my gil you son of a bitch!"  
  
The two struggled with one another, rolling over the table and onto the other side. Bil somehow managed to kick Seth in the face as he flailed in Macky's grasp, and they practically fell into the until now silent Tom's lap, who bellowed something to the effect of, "BRING IT OOOOOOOONNNNNN.", before jumping into the fray.  
  
Tom had been in an Shinra squad that had tangled with the Avalanche group... he'd never quite been right in the head afterwards.  
  
Somewhere in the middle of the four way brawl that started up, all of their gil as well as the few weak materia they had in their weapons disappeared, along with a certain shadow that vanished further into the clump of shacks beyond their light.  
  
It was looking to be a profitable night.  
  
***  
  
The shack was larger, sturdier built than its fellows, and stood a distance apart. This lead Yuffie to believe it housed either something, or someone, of importance. Stopping a moment at the door, she waited, listening for a full thirty seconds before slowly opening the door and entering. So newly made, the door swung outward on well greased hinges, making not a single noise. Yuffie slipped inside and froze along the outer wall, having spotted someone... several someones (ewww) sleeping on the bed. Stacked in a pile, as thought thrown carelessly in the heat of passion, rested a belt pouch or bag attached to a belt. The glint of gil, and possibly more, peeked seductively out from under the flap, which bulged from the contents.  
  
Yuffie grinned.  
  
Slipping along side the wall, she made her way towards the pouch.  
  
-I am a ninja... the ninja is unseen. To remain unseen, the ninja must not simply blend in with her surroundings, she must BE her surroundings.- She thought to herself.  
  
Closer... pause as the male sleeper groaned and scratched himself, then continue closer.  
  
-I am not hugging the wall, I am the wall.- she thought. This started a mantra.  
  
-I am not under the table, I am the table. I am not behind the chair, I am the chair. I am not on top of the pile of dirty laundry, I am-  
  
She paused.  
  
-Wait a minute... Did I just...-  
  
She made the possibly fatal mistake of looking down. Her sudden intake of breath didn't help matters.  
  
"OH EWWW.... GROSSNESS!!"  
  
The male figure snorted, sat up and growled. "What the HELL?!"  
  
It's funny he asked that, because in the next four seconds, guess what broke loose.  
  
***  
  
The room suddenly became more chaotic than a Ministry inspired Moshpit. The male bandit exploded up from the bed in fury, grabbing up a pistol as he did so. This woke up the two females at his side, who blinked sleepily in surprise. The next second, a dirty pair of underwear caught the bandit dead face, causing his pistol, which he had been aiming in the general direction of Yuffie, to go off. Yuffie, who had been diving for the pouch, missed getting shot by about an inch. She continued her roll, cursing her bad luck, caught the belt and bounced off the wall up into a full sprint for the open door.   
  
However, while this was happening, at the load report of the pistol, the two females had became extremely alert, if nothing else. Self preservation is an interesting instinct, as it causes different people to react in different ways. Here we see three seperate responses:  
  
The first girl responded with option A) Indecision. She screamed and covered herself up fearfully, pulling a little two hard on the blanket and causing the bandit to fall flat on his back, underwear still stuck to his face, he reacted with option B) Fight. He waved the pistol about and fired blindly at all corners of the room, yelling loudly, but slightly muffled. The other girl, perhaps the smarter of the two, Attempted option C) Namely, get the fuck out of dodge, and she jumped off the bed completely naked and made a beeline for the door, but tripped over a chair and ended up tangled with it clutching her shin.  
  
Yuffie hurdled over the stunned bimbo (heh... stunned bimbo hurdling, an olympic sport candidate if I've ever heard one) then out the door. She had made about halfway across the courtyard when the place lit up like a roman candle and alarms started sounding. Apparently they'd managed to figure out some way to get power into the facility, perhaps a mako battery or something, because all of the sudden, there was no longer anywhere to hide.  
  
Yuffie blinked in the sudden light, cursed her luck (but being two inches from some guy's much abused jockey shorts was a little too much for her gross-shitometer to deal with, thank you very much) and prepared to do a little option B herself.  
  
"Get the bitch!" A very loud, very angry voice sounded into the night, revealing the bandit leader, now clad in the much abused jockey shorts (ewwww) and a grunge covered long coat of some kind, pistol in hand. Several bandits milled about, confused as to who he was referring to, but a line of guards unshouldered their rifles and oriented on the running figure.  
  
She never stopped running, her hand flashed out, and a streak of silver sliced the air like it was something palpable. It came in a perfect circular arc, passing each bandit guard in turn, neatly severed each rifle barrel, then returned to Yuffie's waiting hand.  
  
God she loved Conformer.  
  
They stared at the rifles in confusion and shock, too awed to do much of anything productive.  
  
Well, much of anything productive but stand there like an impromptu wall. Yuffie skidded to a halt and changed directions back towards the bandit leader.  
  
"GRRRRLLLLRRRWWWLLLL I SAID GET HER, YOU IDIOTS! CATCH HER!" He shook the empty, useless pistol in frustration and pointed.  
  
Several bandits now chased the rapidly retreating Yuffie, forcing her towards the Bandit leader. The first one to reach her leapt at her in a sideways tackle move, and she ducked completely under him, never stopping her run. Another stepped in to bear hug her and she kicked him square in the jaw, flipping his body over so that he landed on his face, stunned.   
  
Yuffie grinned. She had a plan. Like most of her plans, it involved a overwhelming large risk to sanity margin.   
  
The next bandit swung his rifle like an impromptu club and she parried with Conformer, flashing the shuriken downward so fast it made a hissing noise. The bandit's pants, no longer being held up by his now severed belt, promptly said to hell with this and dropped, revealing his hairy legs and heart patterned jockey shorts. He tripped, and as he went down, Yuffie used his skull as a spring board to catapult herself at the Bandit leader.  
  
Vex, the Bandit leader, was beginning to get a little vexxed himself. He had been rudely awakened from a deep, restful sleep after a night's carousing, had his dignity assaulted, and his possessions stolen, and he was out for blood. How dare this little bitch invade his home and take his stuff, that he'd taken fair and square from other people? How dare she make his men look like bumbling idiots. How dare she come flying at him like a bat outta-  
  
Anything else going through his mind at that point immediately went in the opposite direction as Yuffie planted both feet into his face, bent her legs to absorb the shock and coil herself inward, then explode upward into the night like a bottle rocket. Vex impacted face first with the ground, his head being buried an inch or three by the force, his screams of pain and outrage muffled by several mouthfuls of topsoil. Yuffie flipped neatly at the apex of her leap like a master gymnist, landing tiptoe on the wall of the fortress. She smiled back at her pursuers, winked, then slapped her ass twice and dropped over the other side.  
  
The small post she'd been standing on seconds before was immediately torn apart by gunfire.  
  
Yuffie disappeared into the night.  
  
The bandits stared at each other, uncertain what to do. One bandit leaned in close to Vex, who was still facedown in the dirt.  
  
The bandit poked him concernedly.  
  
He immediately became a bit more concerned when Vex's hand shot out and grabbed his throat. Vex picked himself up and spit dirt out of the side of his mouth, drug the hapless bandit to stare at him face to face, and snarled.  
  
"Saddle up the Lizards. I want that girl's spleen for a trophy." His eyes glinted furiously.  
  
The bandit gulped and hastened to do as he was asked.  
  
Vex turned to his crew and growled, his lip twitching spasmodically. "5000 gil to the man who brings me that... that girl."   
  
Half in the light, half out of it, his face took on an extremely fearsome quality.  
  
At least, it would have been fearsome, had it not had a big red footprint visible on it.  
  
***  
  
Anyone who thinks a bounty hunter's job is easy has obviously never done it before.  
  
First of all, you start off with only a description of your target and maybe, if you're lucky, a vague idea of where he's going. Unfortunately, people who skip town because of crimes committed very seldom leave a forwarding address, this being counterproductive to remaining in an unjailed state. Additionally, criminals that require a bounty are usually repeat offenders, so they know how to lie low for a while once they get where they are going, which further widens the search area. Once you find the bastard, then you have to apprehend them, and that's difficult as well. Very few bounties are for dead or alive, most require the villain to be brought in still alive, which meant you had to shoot very carefully.  
  
The villain in question was under no such restraints, and if he was smart, he knew you were coming, and he probably had friends.  
  
Add to this the fact that for all of her immaturity, Vincent was being tasked to hunt a NINJA, and it immediately becomes clear why most of the people Godo had sent previously had been unable to locate her.  
  
However daunting his task might have been, Vincent was not completely in the dark. He knew her personally, and he was now intimately aware of her situation. This gave him an advantage.  
  
He pondered this as he rested in the cargohold (Vincent had no need of creature comforts, and had been able to purchase a much cheaper ticket by offering to reside in the cargohold for the trip. The captain had stared at him like he was crazy, but truthfully, Vincent preferred it. No one else bothered to go down into the cargohold, and that left him alone with his thoughts) of the ship traveling from Wutai to Costa Del Sol, ironically, exactly 2 months to the day before Yuffie would attempt her desperate grab for cash in the Gongaga jungle. He considered the evidence, what he knew of Yuffie, combined with what he knew of her situation.   
  
Point 1, Yuffie hated flying, and hated ships... pretty much hated anything that didn't move naturally. She was prone to motion sickness, which led Vincent to believe she'd grab a transport to the nearest port away from Wutai, and no further. The nearest actual port was Costa Del Sol, which also happened to be a port which none of her friends lived at, an added bonus, Vincent believed she'd have thought.   
  
This led to point 2, what she was doing was reckless and irresponsible, she must have known how the other, older members of Avalanche would see that, at the very least they would try to talk her out of it, at worst, they'd contact Godo. So she would avoid towns where she might meet her friends, that marked Cosmo Canyon, Correl, and Rocket Town off the list. On that continent, that left only Nibelheim, the Gold Saucer, and Gongaga.  
  
This led to point 3, Yuffie would probably avoid moving closer to Wutai. Additionally, if Vincent remembered correctly, Yuffie had found Nibelheim to be somewhat boring and spooky. That left only the Gold Saucer and Gongaga.  
  
Vincent could only surmise that from what he knew of Yuffie, the Gold Saucer was the best bet.  
  
He sighed. Vincent disliked that place intensely. It was too bright, too fake... and too full of noise... and people... there was almost no where one could go to get away from it all. The Gold Saucer was a place people went to to get away from their troubles, to forget about their problems.   
  
Vincent could neither get away or forget, and so the place was useless to him.  
  
Without the mako reactors that had powered them before, ships were forced to make use of old coal driven steam engines, inefficient and prone to breakdown. The trip, normally a scant five day voyage, took the small passenger ship two and a half weeks to accomplish.  
  
None of the other passengers were aware of the odd passenger being carried, or his mission.  
  
His face showed none of his misgivings as he methodically saddled his chocobo, a quiet, even tempered beast, who warked at him quietly as he went about his business. It shifted its feet on the cold deck, sensing this long wait was at an end, and glad of it. When the boat pulled up to the pier, he was on his way in less time then it took for the captain to wish him a pleasant stay.  
  
He didn't want to deal with the Gold Saucer. Not in the least.  
  
Still, to protect Yuffie from her mistake, and to prevent a civil war, Vincent would make that sacrifice.  
  
Probably a few more on the way.  
  
***  
  
A month later, Vincent wearily concluded that Yuffie was not in the Gold Saucer.  
  
At least, not now. There were rumours about some sort of confrontation between a large man and a small girl matching Yuffie's description in the arena. From what Vincent was able to surmise, Sung had caught up with Yuffie here, and tried to drag her bodily back to Wutai. This had ended with her kicking the stuffing out of him, giving him his unfortunate tattoo, and stealing his Chocobo. He knew this because there was a stolen property report in Sung's name, and Yuffie had been listed as the prime suspect.  
  
Vincent sighed. It had taken him too long to scrounge out that information, and it was meager at best. One promising lead had her taking off in the direction of Gongaga, which fit in well with his guesswork up til now. There was just one fly in the ointment.  
  
He wasn't the only one asking around for Yuffie's whereabouts.  
  
Others had been asking, and they'd been paying quite a bit for the information too. Vincent surmised that Yuffie didn't have a whole lot of time left before these agents caught up with her.  
  
He could only hope, as he left the Gold Saucer behind in a trail of dust, headed for Gongaga, that he was faster than they were.  
  
***  
  
It's funny how things work out. Coincidences pile up one atop the other, until one is almost forced to admit that perhaps there is some force out there, looking out for fools and madmen. Call it destiny, fate, or some fickle god. Call it what you will, but it was in full effect. Vincent arrived in Gongaga just as Yuffie was leaving after spending the last of the cash she had on a meal and a bed. He was able to confirm that she had been here, additionally that she'd sold Sung's chocobo about a week ago, and was actually quite a big spender here, up until yesterday.   
  
Vincent considered the terrain thoughtfully. Her best bet would be to head into Gongaga jungle to pick up a few bounties on the local monsters... Vincent had done something similar during his own wanderings across the land. Since she would be on foot, she couldn't have gotten very far. Vincent doubted she'd go beyond the jungle, at least, not in the time it had taken him to get here. Vincent paused to pick up a few supplies then headed out into the jungle after her. An ordinary tracker would have been unable to find the meager signs that Yuffie had left behind her. Indeed, had she not been unused to the jungle, it was quite feasible that even Vincent wouldn't have been able to pick up her trail. Pick it up he did, however, and in the fading light that crept through the trees, he picked his way carefully through the dense foliage, following the small set of tracks that he had picked up.   
  
He sensed he was close.  
  
He had been searching for her exactly two months.  
  
As it was mentioned earlier, kinda makes you think perhaps something *cough-author-cough* might a hand in this little coincidence, doesn't it?  
  
***  
  
Something was moving through the brush. Several somethings. Several... BIG somethings. Vincent reined in the chocobo and it warked at him, half in curiousity, half in nervousness. Vincent patted its head gently, calming it, then tied its reins to a nearby branch. He moved quietly through the pitch blackness. Well, pitch blackness for anyone else... there was a little bit of moonlight filtering in from the dense canopy, and this was enough light for Vincent to see quite well by.   
  
There were some advantages to being a monster, after all.  
  
He stopped when he saw a small blur burst through the nearby bushes and rush past him, so close he could have reached out to touch the running figure. He glanced down momentarily, caught sight of the small sneakerlike track left in the soft topsoil, then flattened himself against a nearby tree as the crashing and stomping noises got louder. Immediately out of the brush that Yuffie had burst through, the bushes exploded, disgorging four gigantic komodo dragons, crushing and hissing their way through the jungle. Two men sat on each lizard, one controlling the beast, the other armed with what appeared to be a Shinra squad light antipersonnel machine gun. Vincent sighed.  
  
-What have you gotten yourself into, Yuffie?- He thought.   
  
As last of the Lizards passed close by, he spotted a dangling side strap that attached to the saddle, probably to allow the mounting of supplies for easy transport. Yuffie's pursuers, in their haste to get to pursuing, had failed to properly stow the strap, and it flopped back and forth at the Lizard's side.  
  
It was an easy matter to reach out, grab the thing, and allow himself to be dragged along with the lizard. He carefully, quietly climbed hand over hand up the strap, flipping himself lightly atop the reptile, immediately behind the machine gunner, who was so intent upon getting a shot at the fleeing girl he never noticed the dark passenger behind him. Vincent grabbed the man by the back of his collar with his clawed prosthesis and tossed him over the side so quickly the man didn't even get an opportunity to scream. The lizard, goaded on by the man saddled on its neck, walked right over the hapless bandit without even noticing him.  
  
The hapless bandit in question, however, certainly noticed. For about a half a second.  
  
Vincent took control of the machine gun and racked the slide, noting, at his feet, several grenades. Narrowing his eyes, he took note of the positions of each of the other three lizard teams. Swiveling the machine gun to orient at the one closest to him, he opened fire at its hind quarters. Stitching a staccato burst across its flank, he marched the tracer fire up to the machinegun nest on its back. After pumping rounds into it for a second or so, he was rewarded when the ammunition and explosives contained in the nest exploded messily, throwning bandit and bits of lizard all over the place. The lizard in question shrieked and ran off at a crazy angle into the jungle, taking its helpless controller with it.  
  
The man who piloted the Komodo dragon that Vincent was on turned in the saddle to yell at his gunner.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing, Gantz... you just-" He stopped, blinking at the sight in front of him.   
  
A tall man, tattered red cloak streaming in the wind, set features hard to make out in the gloom, rose from his crouched position in the machinegun nest. Something that glittered weakly in the sparse moonlight made a pinging noise in his right hand. Part of the object, the reflective part, flipped into the night over the side of the lizard. The other, rounded, less reflective part, he dropped into the nest at his feet.   
  
The pilot blinked. "Who the fuck are you?"  
  
Vincent did not answer, he simply crouched and sprang upward, into the night.  
  
If the pilot was upset by Vincent's rudeness, he quickly got over it as he realized belatedly what the object in Vincent's hand had been.  
  
One of the thirty or so grenades stocked in the machine gun nest.  
  
"Oh sh-"  
  
Another explosion rocked the night.  
  
***  
  
Yuffie, her sides heaving with exertion, dodged around a tree and kept right on running, knowing that to falter or Leviathan forbid trip at this point would mean certain death.  
  
"Geez," she groused to herself. "You'd think I pissed these guys off or somethin'."  
  
Machine gun fire made Yuffie dive over a log and keep rolling, back up to her feet, until she realized the bullets weren't even coming close to her. An explosion lit up the night, followed by a horrendous bellowing roar of pain and anger.  
  
"What the hell?!" She shouted.  
  
Another explosion, this one a rattling bang like several smaller explosions rolling into one, followed by a horrendous crashing noise and a weak, gurgled hiss.  
  
"Alright, what the heck is goin' on back there? Incompetent I figured, but terminally stupid?"  
  
The lead Komodo Dragon crashed through the underbrush just behind Yuffie, spurring her to redouble her running efforts and set aside her thinking efforts, at least for now. She spun easily, tossing Conformer out behind her at an upward angle, and continuing her spin until she was reoriented forward, still running. The silvered, deadly bit of spinning metal flashed almost lazily upward, catching the rushing beast square between the eyes. All the laws of physics and ballistics stood up and clammered indignantly at once. A five ounce bit of metal tossed by an 18 year old girl, when colliding with a skull with a five inch plate of bone, by all rights should have no appreciable effect.  
  
Reality told all those laws to shut up, because this was Conformer, the legendary weapon made especially for impossible situations, being thrown by a ninja who had taken part in the destruction of the most indestructible being ever to live.  
  
The laws of physics and ballistics sat down and glared sullenly at the girl in question, muttering something to the effect of, "I'll get you yet."  
  
Back in the real world, the deadly shuriken passed through the Lizard's skull like it was made of paper, slamming out an eighteen inch diameter hole in the back of the thing's skull, and splattering the hapless pilot with blood, brains and worse.  
  
About a split second later the beast flipped end over end and crushed both him and the gunner beneath its several ton bulk.  
  
"Hell yeah!" Yuffie pumped her fist.  
  
Her victory dance was cut horrifically short.  
  
The laws of physics and ballistics grinned predatorily.  
  
For after having exsanguinated a five ton beast's skull, the deadly shuriken had somehow managed to get itself lodged in a fifteen foot diameter tree, and was not returning to Yuffie's grasp.  
  
About that moment, the last Komodo Dragon broke into the clearing. Yuffie gulped, turned to run, and her foot caught a blasted root and she ended up flat on her ass staring up at five tons of hungry dragon, with a pilot grinning his ass off staring down at her.  
  
"Goddamn it! The laws of physics must hate me!" She shouted, struggling to get her blasted foot loose.  
  
Yup. The laws of ballistics too.  
  
***  
  
Vincent spent the next few seconds leaping from tree limb to tree limb, high above where the action was taking place. He witnessed Yuffie's magnicent throw, as well as her ignoble defeat at the hands of a tree root, and settled himself in the crook of the tree, snapping Death Penalty calmly but amazingly, inhumanly, quickly into a firing position. Wetting his finger, he slipped the gunsight up into position and gathered his breath.   
  
-No time to gauge the distance. Going to have to guess-timate.- Vincent thought to himself. -About 75 yards. Slight bit of windage, too short a distance but the target is moving about 20 miles an hour... bullet drop should be negligable over that distance...-  
  
All of these thoughts and a few more flickered by in less then a second as he took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and between breaths, squeezed the trigger.  
  
Just as the beast began to charge, intent on trampling Yuffie into a more or less pancaked shape.  
  
***  
  
Yuffie had exhausted her options and was about to just ditch her damn shoe when the bandit got tired of playing with her and snapped his reins, forcing the beast into a charge. Yuffie blinked, paled and struggled with her shoe.  
  
-NOO!! I don't wanna end up as Big Lizard toe jam! SHIIIII-  
  
Her thoughts were cut short as a strangely familiar gunshot boomed through the night.  
  
The pilot, intent on on urging his beast forward, never heard the shot. Of course, the heavy calibre long rifle's bullet traveled at supersonic speeds, and the distance was far too short for him to hear anything before the bullet reached the target.  
  
Since the target was the back of his skull, it hardly mattered if he heard it anyway. The heavy calibre, armor piercing mythril jacketed bullet passed through his head, his face did an impression of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption, and the bullet continued through, burying itself deep in the spinal column of the charging beast.  
  
The laws of ballistics may hate Yuffie, but they love Vincent Valentine like a brother.  
  
The Komodo Dragon suddenly lost the ability to control its limbs and flopped suddenly, forward momentum causing it to slide forward until the build up of dirt around its wide skull created enough resistance to slow it to a stop.  
  
Its bony crest rested a scant five inches from a startled young ninja's nose.  
  
She blinked several times at it, staring cross-eyed.   
  
"Hoo boy. Might need a change of shorts after that one." She muttered quietly to herself.  
  
Amazingly, her sneaker choose that exact moment to come loose from its hiding place.  
  
She stared at it irritably for a moment before standing up and brushing herself off.  
  
Climbing atop the dead beasts head (it had snapped its own neck when it crashed) she walked its length from tip to tail, and peered into the gloom. Someone had been helping her out there.. someone who had fired that achingly familiar shot. She just couldn't place it though. Come to think of it, there had been four dinos after her... where were the rest of them?  
  
A light flapping noise caught her attention and she jerked back, glancing upward. A tall figure dropped down on top of the beast about three feet in front of her, all menacing red eyes and red cloak. She yelped and swung a roundhouse kick at it in reflex.  
  
"It", in an unamused fashion, caught her kick and stared down her leg at her.  
  
She blinked, then amazement flooded her face. "Vinnie? I-Is... that you?"  
  
Vincent closed his eyes and sighed, releasing her foot. He really hated that nickname.  
  
Yuffie waved her arms a little, off balance from the way Vincent had suddenly released her foot and took a couple of steps back. Recovering her balance, she stared at him in shock. Of all the people she'd expected to see here, Vincent was about the last one. Even later then Rufus and the Pope, and that was saying something, because she wasn't even sure who the Pope was, just that it was more likely she'd see him here than Vincent.  
  
Vincent, for his part, simply unholstered Peacemaker and stepped past her while her shocked brain struggled to come to terms with his sudden appearance.  
  
He glanced over the side of the beast and noted the pilot slumped over, a large hole where his head should be. If he felt any satisfaction of the amazing display of his marksmanship, he showed no sign. He turned his gaze to the machinegunner. The man's pale, shock-ridden face came into view, his breathing labored. He had a bloody streak running from one temple, and he struggled to orient his hopelessly damaged machinegun at Vincent.  
  
Yuffie caught none of this.  
  
"Hey Vinnie... long time no see, yeah I'm doin' fine, so what brings you to Gongaga?"  
  
He stared down at the bandit, lost in thought, apparently not listening to her.  
  
"In the middle of the jungle?"  
  
He appeared to come to a decision.  
  
"At night?"  
  
In one smooth motion he pointed the revolver at the downed bandit and pulled the trigger, sending the man into the afterlife.  
  
Yuffie stared at him, openmouthed, her eyes wide. "Geez! Vinnie... that guy couldn't do anything to us. Why'd ja have ta-"  
  
Vincent looked at her coldly. "Were we going to carry him, with two broken legs, and where exactly?"  
  
She blinked. "Er.."  
  
"Or leave him here... helpless... for the jungle frogs." He continued to stare at her, his face less expressive than a brick wall.  
  
She frowned. This was the most she'd ever heard from Vincent. Ever. Period. He was right, in a coldly efficient, ultra-pragmatic sort of way. How very... Vincenty of him.  
  
As with any argument she was destined to lose, she switched tactics.  
  
"You haven't answered my question, Vinnie... What are you out here for?"  
  
He holstered Peacemaker and stared at her fully.  
  
"You." He said, calmly.  
  
She blinked.  
  
-Ok... that's not exactly the answer I was looking for. Why does this answer not suddenly fill me with confidence?- She thought warily.  
  
Vincent waited for her to make the first move.  
  
***  
  
A/N: Doncha just HATE cliffhangers? I know I do. I hate them so much. I would apologize, but I am tired, and I figure anyone who's annoyed enough to quite reading because of a cliffhanger probably wasn't enjoying the story very much anyway. In retrospect, Mr. Zeta, if you are still out there, I decided to stick with the Peacemaker as Vincent's sidearm of choice. Its historical ramifications tickle me far too much, and it is a revolver that he uses. I appreciate your info though, so keep on tossing me curve balls.  
  
4 day weekend! Woohoo! I sleep well this night, for on the morrow I play DnD! Oh frabulous day, galloo gallay!  
  
A special bonus to the first person who can tell me where I lifted the title for chapter 1 from. By where I mean who, and what it was. Hopefully figuring it out will keep you busy until I come up with the next chapter.  
  
Chris, DT 


	3. Welcome To The Jungle

A/N: Apologies to anyone who read the first incarnation of this chapter... I reviewed it twice immediately after I wrote it and thought it looked fine, then read it again once I'd had eight hours of sleep, and saw a large number of stupid errors. So I went through and fixed them. A few people mentioned that there were possible pacing problems concerning the story, I considered these problems carefully and decided I was happy with the pace being set by the story. That being said, have faith in my abilities as a storyteller to keep track of and include every detail.  
  
I do have a plan, people.  
  
For those of you who think that Vincent is perhaps being overly cruel, this is my interpretation of Mr. Valentine. Remember that this man was an assassin, not to mention demonridden. I saw nothing in the game to change my opinion of him, and though I always saw him as on the right path, I think he's got a loooong way to go.  
  
That being said, I hope I managed to capture his solitary and impossibly cool nature.   
  
So, on with the show!  
  
"You. You light up my whole day, whenever you're away. I'd like to think I've got you figured out- no way. If I get my hands on you I will make you do all the things I want you, bend your will to mine, never hear you whine. Everybody break out, it's enough- SHOUT! It's enough- SHOUT! It's enough, yeah it's enough. She's callin' we're brawlin', this is the hell that is my life. I'm laughin' she's cryin' this is the hell that is my, hell that is my life." -Zebrahead, Hell That is My Life  
  
Time stood frozen for what seemed like centuries as the two former comrades stared at one another. Yuffie, ninja that she was, never the less found herself strangely indecisive in the face of this familiar stranger before her. Perhaps it was not so strange, really. Ninja are trained to react to an opponent's mindset, to hide themselves if the opponent seemed suspicious, to manipulate and catch an adversary offguard, strike in his moment of weakness. Unconsciously, a good ninja will use these principles when dealing with anyone, friend or foe, to give themselves a greater advantage... to know what words to use or what actions to take to receive the best advantage. Perhaps this might seem cold-hearted or manipulative, but then, what is a ninja, if not these things?   
  
Yuffie was, despite her impulsiveness, a very good ninja.  
  
This does not explain her indecisiveness when faced with Vincent, however.   
  
The answer was simple. She was unable to read the enigmatic gunman, and didn't really know him all that well from her time with Avalanche. Because of this, she not only had no idea what he was thinking, she couldn't even guess based on any sort of past behavior he had exhibited. The extent of his interaction with her up to this point had been to either ignore her presence completely, or, when she inevitably forced him to recognize her existence, (usually by annoying the shit out of him) he inevitably had fixed her with a strange blank and yet disapproving sort of glance that made her feel... sad.   
  
Yes, that was the word she was looking for... sad. As though he somehow expected better things of her, and she had let him down. Sad, because for some reason this always made her feel ashamed of herself, and Yuffie Kisaragi, ninja and notorious Materia Hunter, was not accustomed to feeling ashamed of herself, not on ANYONE'S account. No one else, not even her father, had been able to make her feel ashamed very often, and yet Vincent didn't even have to say anything to her, just fix her with that, despite her every attempt to get under his skin, completely unannoyed and yet disappointed gaze.  
  
Every time he had done it, she'd stopped pestering him and bothered someone else, and every time, when she finally got up the nerve to ask Vincent what his problem was with her, she'd find him ignoring her again. This made her angry, because no one ignored her, at least if they knew what was good for them, so she'd try to annoy him again (the best way to get someone's attention, she had thought) and he'd give her that look that sent her elsewhere, once again ashamed and not entirely sure why. This viscous cycle had continued the entire time she'd known him, and as a consequence, she didn't really know much about the man, save that he was creepy and quiet. One thing she did know, however, after seeing him change into Chaos during the fight with Hojo, was that he had his limits. It was probably best that she had never pushed them beyond the breaking point. Then the journey had ended, and the members of Avalanche had gone their seperate ways, and Vincent had disappeared like the shadow he was.  
  
Now he was here.  
  
Looking at her.  
  
"Me?" She chuckled weakly. "Why Vincent... heh heh... I had no idea I had that much effect on you." This was safer ground... teasing... this she was good at. She shifted into perky teenager mode.  
  
"Still, I suppose I can't blame you... I am one FOX of a ninja girl. I hate to break it to you, Vinnie... but you aren't really my type."  
  
Vincent stared down at her coldly, blinked once, very slowly, then cracked the cylinder of his revolver open and dumped the shells into his palm, and pocketed them in one smooth motion. The sudden, unexpected reaction to her taunting caused her to stop mid tease and blink at him, still leaning over while looking up at him, finger still raised.  
  
She dropped it.  
  
"Riiight... well Vinnie, its been... real. Seeing you again. I mean that. Really... yeah." She rubbed the back of her head. "I gotta move on... places to go, people to rob and all..."  
  
He loaded new shells into the revolver and holstered it, turning towards the west, and the direction of the not-so-hidden bandit camp.  
  
"We should move soon. There will be more of them." He muttered. He gave the impression that he was not talking to Yuffie, simply stating his preferences to the air.  
  
Yuffie stared at him, still utterly confused. The confusion rapidly turned into annoyance. This... MAN! How the hell does someone ignore you and yet STILL manage to completely invalidate everything you'd just said? Infuriating... Dark... Guy! Suffer the wrath of POUTY IRRITATED TEENAGE NINJA GIRL, and her sidekick... SARCASM!!  
  
"Oh yeah, I'm just gonna go wandering off into the woods with a guy who's probably spent more time contemplating his own navel then a quadraplegic. Sounds like a great idea." She snapped at him bitingly.  
  
Vincent nodded shortly. "That's the plan."  
  
She gritted her teeth. "I was being SARCASTIC!!"  
  
Vincent cocked his head. "I know."  
  
She blinked.   
  
He jumped down off of the dead lizard's back.  
  
"I wasn't." He said without turning around.  
  
She followed him as he strode purposefully away, fuming at his irritating manner. This was worse than just being ignored. There was no cracking this nut, and nut he most certainly was. A cold, sociopathic, scary... unsalted nut. She didn't even get the impression that he was inwardly laughing at her... he was just empty.  
  
Somehow that was worse.  
  
"You still haven't answered my question, Vinnie." she said, switching tactics.  
  
"Yes I did. You just weren't listening." He returned, stopping at the base of a large tree.  
  
"Vincent, I don't know where you're from, but where I come from, answering a question like, why are you here generally can't be answered monosyllab- what ARE you doing?! Are you going to take a pi-"  
  
In answer he sharply kicked the tree with his booted foot, causing the tree to vibrate violently. She gulped. There was alot more force in that kick then it looked. Maybe she'd better...  
  
What was that whistling noise?  
  
She glanced up in time to reflexively catch Conformer before it buried itself in her forehead.  
  
"GAH!! VINNIE, YOU DICK!! YOU COULDA KILLED ME!!"  
  
He glanced back at her. "You're welcome."  
  
If it were physically possible, steam would have come shooting out of her ears.  
  
***  
  
Contrary to how it may have seemed, Yuffie was not completely clueless. She was well aware that she was being hunted. You don't get to be a ninja without realizing certain things. Sung had simply been lucky, catching up to her like that at the Golden Saucer. She'd sent him on his way with a little reminder that she didn't want to be found, but that was done more to irritate her father than with any expectation that he would call off the hunt. Yuffie had learned at a young age that her father was not a man to be easily swayed, and his plans for her were well known.  
  
It had snuck up on her, turning eighteen. Time, true ninja that it was, had nailed her.  
  
There was a time when she would have given anything for a word of praise from that old man. Pushing herself to become the best ninja... running around the globe hunting down Materia, all of it wasn't good enough. He'd made light of her accomplishments, teased her... all of this only pushed her to search harder for that elusive goal... that shining moment.  
  
Just a benign smile. One without mockery tainting it. She never would have admitted it, not even to herself, but that would have made it all worth it.  
  
She'd started the day with her usual routine, getting up "oh-my-god-what-are-you-doing-up" early to avoid the first few tours scheduled to gather about the home she steadfastly kept as her own, despite her father's none too subtle attempts to annoy her into moving into the palace. She cleaned up, dressed, ate, then set about the time consuming task of checking her various traps and snares, resetting the ones that had been tripped or looked slightly less than perfect. There were more traps than usual, (and far far more than necessity, and possibly sanity not to mention good taste dictated) her reaction to the tours, operating under the logic that if it became known that this area of the tour were more than a little dangerous, people would be less apt to poke their noses where it might get loped, crushed, yanked or burned off.  
  
A guard was currently suspended in one of her more ingenious hanging traps, swaying slowly in the breeze.  
  
She frowned.  
  
"Ahem... hem." The guard cleared his throat and closed his eyes. "Milady Kisaragi. The Lord Kisaragi requests your presence." His officiousness was somewhat ruined by the fact that his ceremonial gorget was currently riding up about half the length of his face, despite his attempts to keep it down.  
  
She narrowed her eyes. This was SO like him, lately. Nevermind the fact that it was still insanely early in the morning, she wasn't some damn servant he could just order around. She was his daughter, damn it?! Why couldn't he be nice for ONCE!!  
  
"You can tell pops that I'll be there when I'm there, and if he wants to see me so bad, he can damn well come out here and get me himself."  
  
The guard blinked, somewhat put off his game by her tone. This was, after all, a future lord of Wutai, not to mention a very dangerous ninja. "Er... as you wish, Lady Kisaragi... but, I can't give a message to anyone upside down like-"  
  
WHAM!!  
  
"Urk... thank you. Lady Kisaragi."  
  
"Don't mention it." She replied sweetly, waving as she walked off.  
  
***  
  
"Ok old man, I'm here like you asked so what's the friggin' rush, already?" Where no Yuffie had been before, a very annoyed Yuffie now leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. She'd waited a few hours, not really doing anything, just making a point, then she'd finally showed up.  
  
Lord Godo Kisaragi didn't acknowledge her presence. He simply continued signing documents, his eyes never raising from the table.  
  
A vein popped out of Yuffie's forehead. "Fine. Got nothing better to do than wait here anyway. You might think you're annoying me, but I can be bigger than that."  
  
Godo continued with his work serenely.  
  
This state of events lasted approximately two and a half minutes.  
  
She finally snapped away from the wall and snarled at him. "Fine. Screw this, I'm outta he-"  
  
"Come in, and SIT DOWN." Godo said, looking up sternly. This action was so utterly out of character for him that she paled, jerked, then numbly did as he said.  
  
He set down the pen and regarded her.  
  
She frowned. "Is this about more Materia? I'm telling you pops, there ain't a whole lot more out there-"  
  
"Yuffie, I know this is a difficult concept for you-"  
  
"I mean, there might still be a few rare ones in the wreckage of Midgar, but I've picked through that place pretty well, and-"  
  
"There are certain realities that you need to understand child, and-"  
  
"I checked out the Crater pretty good, but that place gives me the creeps so it's possible that-"  
  
"YUFFIE!" Godo thundered, slapping the desktop.  
  
She stopped, stunned.  
  
He sighed and massaged his forehead. "Yuffie... so help me, LISTEN to what I'm saying."  
  
"You're not a Materia Hunter anymore."  
  
She stared at him like he'd grown a second head.  
  
"I haven't always been the best father to you, Yuffie. I admit that. Leviathan knows, I've pushed you hard. Maybe your mother would have disapproved, but she's been gone a long time, and I did the best I knew to do."  
  
Yuffie blinked. This was completely unreal. Godo NEVER talked about mom. Ever. It was just one of those subjects they both avoided. A briar patch of misgivings and hurt feelings. Truthfully, Yuffie had always gotten the impression that her father blamed her somehow for her mother's death. The guilt that this caused is what pushed her to strive for his approval, to win his love.  
  
Not that she realized that.  
  
A vise began to form around her heart.  
  
"I sent you out into the world with all the knowledge I could impart. I wanted you to experience things, get a little independance, a little self-reliance, before you had to accept your responsibilities. The Materia was never really what mattered... do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"  
  
Oh she did. She understood perfectly. He'd sent her out there, sun or rain, heat or snow, again and again. When she was younger, she'd cried about it a little... but when your tears fall unnoticed by anyone but you, she'd learned, they were better left unshed. She'd thought she was making his precious Wutai strong again, getting the Materia that were so important to him. That made HER important to him, and she'd seek that anywhere... do anything for it.  
  
It was all a lie.  
  
The truth was, Materia was never important to him. Her LIFE wasn't important to him, everything she'd DONE for HIM, wasn't important to him. He was talking on, oblivious to her internal struggle...  
  
Now she understood. He'd been passing the time, waiting until he could foist off HIS dreams on her... turning her into a perfect little ninja to run things HIS way.  
  
She looked up, her face hardened into an uncharacteristic, cold mask.  
  
He smiled slightly, mistaking this for a show of support, an acceptance of the burden ahead. She'd make a fine Lord of Wutai. Gods, he was so proud of her.   
  
"Yuffie... tomorrow you reach your majority. It will give me great satisfaction to see you take your rightful place with your ancestors."  
  
Yuffie was shocked, but she hid the reaction well. How had she forgotten that her birthday was coming so soon?! It didn't seem real, and yet it was...  
  
How had it snuck up on her like that?   
  
Lord of Wutai? Her?  
  
Is that what he wanted her to become? Is THIS the only reason he acknowledged her? Some stupid NINJITSU technique? She'd friggin' learned that because Sephiroth scared the living PISS outta her... she'd needed an edge... and... and...  
  
Screw that.  
  
"I realize it's a shock, Yuffie, but you mustn't be anxious. The whole of Wutai is watching you. Make me proud."  
  
"M-." She stuttered. Stopped. Took a deep breath.   
  
-Compose yourself Yuffie... damn it. Just get out of this room. NOW. Before you kill him.- She thought.  
  
"May I be... excused?"  
  
Godo sighed. "Yes, daughter, you may. I understand it is a matter of extreme importance. Take the rest of the day to plan your future."  
  
She nodded and left without a word.  
  
She'd actually followed his advice too.  
  
By the time the palace was alerted to anything being amiss, she was already puking her guts out stowed away aboard a departing freighter.  
  
Her upset stomach did little to conceal the reality from her, but she hid her emotions very well, considering.  
  
No one was going to use her like that, EVER again.  
  
***  
  
"No."  
  
Vincent stopped at her single word and turned to look at her, sensing a difference in her tone.  
  
"I know my father sent you, Vincent. I don't know why he sent YOU, but I know why you're here. I'm not going back there, and I don't want any part of HIS Wutai." She spat out the name of her country like a curse.  
  
He turned slightly, half of his face concealed by shadow and regarded her with one inscrutable crimson eye.  
  
"I don't care HOW scary you look Vinnie... I've made my decision. Him... you... you'll ALL just have to live with that!" She shouted this with her feet spread wide apart, her hands braced against her thighs.  
  
He said nothing, simply regarded her quietly.  
  
"Fuck you, Vincent. You know what I say?"  
  
Vincent blinked. She'd gotten impossibly vulgar from her time spent with Avalanche. Apparently Cid had rubbed off on her more than anyone could have guessed. Well, at least she wasn't smoking.  
  
"Catch me if you can, sucker!" She shouted, then turned and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.  
  
Just for the record, that's FAST.  
  
Vincent closed his eyes, sighed quietly, then shifted his weight imperceptively and steadied himself.  
  
Yuffie was a small speck getting smaller as it dodged around trees.  
  
She WAS fast.  
  
Just not fast enough.  
  
A sudden crack and a hiss of displaced air tore into her senses like a rabid wolf. A sharp, numbing pain struck her high in the hamstring, where the leg meets the buttock. The force of impact spun her around and slammed her bodily into the base of a gnarled tree.  
  
She doubled over and clutched her stomach, more from the sudden shock of betrayal then any actual damage from the impact with mother nature.  
  
He'd... shot... her.  
  
Vincent. Shot. Her.  
  
A light crunching noise caught her attention and she looked up, blinking away tears. She followed the line of his dusty boots up, past the tattered red cloak slightly askew (yet still impossibly cool looking), covering his golden clawed hand. The still smoking revolver held lightly in his human hand. Still on up, impossibly high up to his impassive face, staring down at her, that damnable, disappointed expression faintly visable on his countenance.  
  
"You... you shot me." She muttered.  
  
"Yes, I did." He answered, calmly, cooly, like he'd just confirmed that he'd taken out the garbage, or done the dishes.  
  
"YOU. SHOT. ME?!" She cried, trembling.  
  
It was a good bet this was not from fear.  
  
"Yes."  
  
HOW COULD YOU FUCKING SHOOT ME?" She cried.  
  
He crouched down and stared her in the eye.  
  
"Because I had to."  
  
She blinked. This statement was a little too far gone into the depths of psychotic-pragmatic-shit territory for her to even begin to guess what he had been thinking.   
  
"WHAT THE HELL?!! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!!"  
  
He raised an eyebrow. As though this thought had never occurred to him. He started to reach into his cloak for something.  
  
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT EYEBROW.. THING!! YOU-YOU... PSYCHO!! What the hell could have possibly-"  
  
"Rubber bullets." He said calmly, pulling out a length of rope.  
  
"OF ALL THE INSANE... YOU... what?"  
  
"I reloaded Peacemaker with rubber bullets." He said calmly.  
  
It now occured to her to check a wound that was certain to be grievous and bloody, given the size of bullet normally loaded into Peacemaker. Upon inspection however, she noted that instead of a lethal hole torn into her leg, she instead had an ugly (and certainly sure to be painful) bruise marring her otherwise flawless skin.  
  
She rounded on him like a snake.  
  
"YOU THINK THAT MAKES IT ALL RIGHT? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING OF YOU... YOU..." She stuttered, seeing red, and incidently, NOT seeing what was in his hands.  
  
He looked up sharply. "Monster."  
  
She stopped. "What?"  
  
"It's what you're thinking isn't it?" He said calmly.  
  
She cocked her head at him. "What? I... no! Asshole maybe, but... HEY!! What are you doing with that rope?!"  
  
He did not answer her, but then, considering the situation, he didn't need to.  
  
This did not sit with her well.  
  
Not in the least.  
  
***  
  
"You do of course realize that I'm going to have to hurt you terribly. Quite possibly permenantly."  
  
Plod. Plod. Plod.  
  
"Yup. This is unforgivable. Completely justifiable homicide, really."  
  
Plod. Plod. Plod.  
  
"If you thought Hojo was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet. I'm gonna make you wish you stayed in that nice, cozy coffin of yours. Yessiree. Lots of woe coming to you. Woe. Woe on you!"  
  
Plod. Plod. Plod. SMACK!  
  
"OW!! YOU ASSHOLE, THAT WAS MY FACE! YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!"  
  
If Yuffie could have rubbed her head, she would have done so.  
  
Two things prevented her from doing so. One, she was currently suspended a foot off the ground by an intractable, unforgivable wretch of a man, being carried away towards Leviathan only KNOWS where.  
  
Second, her arms were currently tied very securely behind her back.  
  
This state of events was intolerable, to say the least. To say that Yuffie was upset was something of an understatement. She could have very cheerfully contorted Vincent into many interesting shapes that the Gods had never intended for a three dimensional object, LET ALONE a tall, dark and creepy guy like Vincent. What made it worse was that he didn't even have the decency to carry her like a human being. he'd simply grabbed her around the waist and slung her under one arm like... like a newspaper or something. He was making his way through the underbrush, a piece of which had slapped her in the face as he pushed it aside.  
  
It was the most embarassing thing she'd ever experienced.  
  
Even if he DID smell kinda nice.  
  
Like an old, quiet country shrine, a faint air of unidentifiable but pleasant incense, with just a little bit of dust.  
  
Like a secret.  
  
But that wasn't the point, damn it. Yuffie Kisaragi was no package to be carried and delivered like the day's mail.  
  
She would have her revenge.  
  
Ohhhhh yes.  
  
Vincent stopped and looked downward, his eyes searching the gloom. She'd gotten quite a distance away from where he'd first spotted her in her headlong flight away from the rampaging bandits and their mounts. A long, curving chase that had ended up somewhat east and south of the camp itself, and dead east from Vincent's tethered Chocobo. If they were being pursued, Vincent figured it would follow the crushed underbrush left in the wake of the monsters, which meant that avoiding that trail was a necessity, if any more conflict was to be evaded. Vincent decided to simply make a straight line for his Chocobo, avoiding the trail for the most part. This seemed to be the best course.  
  
Unfortunately, it was not. Hidden in the foliage in front of him, Vincent detected a steep drop off. You ran into these, sometimes, in the jungle... the excess of water... a natural cavern, all you needed for a ravine or a sinkhole. He wasn't sure what this was exactly, but it was deep, and wide.  
  
-No help for it, then. Best to skirt it. It shouldn't be too much of a problem.- He thought to himself.  
  
Unfortunately, Yuffie had other plans.  
  
The time for revenge was nigh.  
  
Unbenownst to Vincent, his stop to examine the hidden drop in front of him had afforded Yuffie an opportunity to make a nuisance of herself. She'd wrapped her legs around an nearby tree, for what purpose, Vincent couldn't even BEGIN to guess, having neither the experience nor the mindset to understand the thought processes of an extremely angry and hurt teenaged girl. However, this being said, he ALSO didn't have the forethought to PLAN for it, and was consequently caught by surprise, something that happens very seldomly to the ever wary Ex-Turk. The sudden shift of balance and jerking stop caused Vincent to misstep and stumble slightly, and as a reaction he increased his iron grip on the girl in responsible. She squeaked from the sudden change in abdominal pressure, and her grip on the tree slipped slightly, causing the rough bark to come in contact with the edge of the huge bruise on her leg.  
  
She reacted by kicking wildly, wiggling like the proverbial cat on crack, and causing her to shift Vincent around until one leg slipped partially down the hillside (almost a cliff actually). He latched his golden claw deep into the bark of the very tree Yuffie had gripped earlier, catching the ninja girl by the rope restraining her arms and straining to keep her from falling into the void below her.  
  
She sensed his lack of balance and the strain their position was putting on him, and fought with all her might to get free of him, not sensing (or possibly not CARING about) the drop she was suspended over.  
  
Vincent's grip on her began to slip.  
  
In that moment, he was forced to make a choice. A choice which, though he had no inkling at the time, would change his life forever, and have monumental consequences not only for himself and Yuffie, but the very world itself.  
  
He let go.  
  
Of the tree.  
  
*** 


	4. Dance of the Black and Blue Faeries

A/N: Just wanted to mention that I really LIKE how this chapter turned out, though I will appologize to those who wanted to IMMEDIATELY get on with what happens to Yuffie and Vincent. There IS a plot to this damn thing, and certain elements need to move on.  
  
That being said, I think there is a little something for everyone in this chapter, so please enjoy, and if you'd be so kind, review.

One thing I'd like to mention. FF.net got fancy with their document uploading process, and the bastards somehow managed to make it so that the symbols I normally use to denote a scene change don't show up on the damn screen. In order to keep confusion at a minimum, a scene change will be denoted by end scene. Lame I know, but the best I can do, for now. Hopefully this gets fixed at some future date.  
  
In any case, it's on with the show!  
  
"And constant sorrow, filled his days... I am a man, of constant sorrow. I've seen trouble, all my days. I bid farewell to ol' Kentucky, the place where I was born and raised. The place where he, was born and raised. For six long years, I've been in trouble. No pleasure here, on earth I've found. For in this world, I'm bound to ramble, I have no friends, to help me out. He has no friends, to help him out." -Soggy Bottom Boys, Man of Constant Sorrow  
  
For Godo Kisaragi, pain was like a storm.  
  
Like the hurricanes that sometimes struck the land Leviathan had granted his people, it was a gale force of aches and sharp, inconstant piercing bolts of agony that threatened to topple his iron will, his determination. The sickness had crept up upon him, stealing his vitality, sapping his enthusiasm for anything but rest.  
  
Godo could not rest. Sometimes it seemed to him that his people placed more value on perceptions then actualities. To the alert observer, it was obvious that Lord Godo Kisaragi should be in his death bed, not meeting with officials and carrying on business as usual. The old man was stubborn however, and if he was determined to pretend as though nothing was wrong with him, his court would, at least on the surface, take this at face value.  
  
Even if the strain soaked his candle with gasoline and lit it at both ends.  
  
Still, there were days when he could ALMOST convince himself that things were as they should be. When he broke through the wall of his pain; to the eye of the storm. Jailor that it was, however, it never failed to remind him with the occasional ache that the shackles were still in place, if the chains had been temporarily lengthened. These were good days.  
  
Fortunately for Lord Kisaragi, today was a good day for pains, if a bad day for anything else. He was not yet aware that it WAS a bad day, at this moment he was actually in a pretty good mood. It was fated not to stay that way, however, and as usual these days, Sung was the bearer of bad news.  
  
As was custom, Godo ignored the intrusion of the court messenger who whispered into his bodyguard's ear. The large man nodded quietly and dismissed the messenger, waiting until the boy had left before clearing his throat politely.  
  
Godo looked up, expectantly.  
  
"Lord, the lady Choshu humbly requests an audience with you." He announced in booming baritone.   
  
Godo narrowed his eyes.  
  
"That woman has never humbly done a thing in her entire life." He groused.  
  
Sung choked a bit at this. "L-lord-"  
  
"Oh spare me, boy. Of course I'll see that spider, but I certainly don't have to like it. At least, not in the privacy of my own chambers." He paused to lay down his pen and stood up slowly, brushing the wrinkles from his robes to hide just how much energy it cost him to do so.   
  
"Still, this is sudden. She shall have to meet me during my afternoon meal. At her convenience of course." He muttered.  
  
Sung nodded sharply. "As you wish, Lord. I shall relay the message." He opened the door and spoke to the waiting messenger.  
  
Godo sighed wearily. -I wonder what that bitch has in store this time?- He thought unkindly.  
  
Lady Yuki Choshu was a woman who could be (and in fact often had been) described as a classic beauty, at least, in the Wutain sense. She was a diminutive woman, slender and narrow of hip, but unmistakably feminine. Her skin was that unique shade of white that could only be described as porcelain and without blemish; flawless. Her age was undeterminable at first glance, a common trait of Wutain women, but where most traditional Wutain females (which Lady choshu most certainly was) were unobtrusive and meek, she was certainly anything but. She carried herself with a regal grace that took one back a thousand years, to the beginning of the empire. It was said that Lord Leviathan had chosen a mortal woman to be his consort from the Choshu clan, elevating her to the status of godhood, and when one looked upon the current Lady Choshu, one found one's self believing the old legends.  
  
The Choshu clan had always been closely tied to the Kisaragi one, being one of the several High Families, and in truth, the only High Family that had ever given the Kisaragi Clan a run for it's money, at least where the throne was concerned. The two families had occasionally intermarried, though these offshoots had, for one reason or another, all died out.  
  
More's the pity.  
  
The Choshu are well known for their poise and carriage. They are masters of statescraft, glib and moving public speakers, masters of innuendo and charm. Devious and ruthless, they are long term planners and once slighted, never forgave, and never forgot. An ancient Wutain proverb says this of the High Families: Three things one must watch one's step around, a Kisaragi bearing gifts, A Katsura at your back, but most of all, a Choshu who is smiling.  
  
As Lord Godo Kisaragi sat down to take his meal with the Lady Yuki Choshu, she gave him a polite, perfectly proper smile of greeting.  
  
It never even came close to reaching her eyes.  
  
"Good afternoon, my Lord. I trust you are well?" She greeted him smoothly, seating herself immediately after him, as was proper.  
  
Godo almost paused as he seated himself, but hid his hesitation well. Lady Choshu had just given him a very calculated and well obscured insult. It was just barely possible she meant it for what it was, but considering her network of spies and informants, indeed, truth be told, the very evidence before her eyes, it was unlikely that this was the case. He smiled politely and nodded.  
  
"Indeed, Lady Choshu. As well as I can be. You need not worry on my account."  
  
She let that pass without comment, though it was something of a counter. Instead she focused her gaze on the garden around them and inclined her head towards him.  
  
"Your gardens are quite splendid, my Lord. So thoughtful of you to include my unworthy company during your repast."  
  
He made a polite noise and narrowed his eyes at her, waiting for her to continue. -Get out with it, you snake.- He thought irritably.  
  
The lady Choshu seemed determined to play the game out however, and the next few minutes were spent in idle conversation of less importance (for Godo) than the breath used to utter it. This was a contest of wills, to see who could be made to broach the subject of business first. Whoever DID broach the subject first would be in a slightly less favorable position during the ensuing conversation, as it would become obvious who had less time for subterfuge... less patience. A cheap and somewhat demeaning ploy, but a very Choshu one, and well hidden by a veneer of politeness, as usual.  
  
Still, though Godo won the ensuing contest of banalities being tossed about, he got the impression that it was more because she had lost interest in the battle than any real effort on his part.  
  
"I'm sure that you are aware that the Katsuras have been plotting against you for some time now." She said mildly, as though changing the conversational topic to the weather.  
  
"Of course, Lady Choshu. I am aware of a great many things that happen in my realm."  
  
She ignored the implied threat. "Perhaps you are not aware that they have set in motion a plot to ensure your daughter is never found." She regarded him carefully as she said this.  
  
He had NOT been aware of this, but he hid his surprise like a master. "The thought had occurred to me. They will be dealt with in due time."  
  
She inclined her head. "Indeed they will. My clan can no longer ignore their effrontery... this attempt to assassinate a guest of the Imperial household is the last straw, Lord Kisaragi. It smacks of a severe lack of respect for the throne and the High Families by extension. This is unforgiveable."  
  
Godo watched her carefully, but she was every bit as much a master of subterfuge that he was. What she was implying was both alarming and deeply disturbing, all at once. The High Families, over the many centuries of Wutai's existence, had dwindled down to a mere seven families, of which only two, the Kisaragi's and the Choshu's, maintained any REAL power. By the covenant struck with Lord Leviathan one thousand years ago, as long as the descendants of the original settlers of Wutai still walked this land, the lands of Wutai, supposedly raised from the very sea by Lord Leviathan himself, would remain the sovereign right of those descendants. Unfortunately these families proved to be notoriously unfertile, and so some time in the fourth century of Wutai's existance, when faced with the very real possibility of extinction due to infighting, a peace arrangement of sorts had been made between the families, and strict laws enacted to ensure their continued survival. It was illegal, blasphemous, and taboo all rolled into one for one High Family to attack another.  
  
However, this is what Lady Choshu was implying here... impossible as it might seem. Of course, even the strictest law had loopholes around it (in fact, the stricter the law, the more loopholes there generally are). There was nothing preventing the Choshu family from seeking foreign aid in their attempts to destroy the Katsuras, but Godo had received no reports of mercenary armies large enough to destroy a whole family, especially one that maintained its power through a large force of highly trained ninjas. This meant either she had snuck a force large enough to be a threat to a High Family literally under his nose, a disturbing and frightening revelation of his own grasp on the throne, or just how much power her family had acquired, either way...  
  
Or she had some other method of destroying the family... something he could not have forseen.  
  
He was unsure as to which possibility frightened him more.  
  
Still, he revealed none of this, at least that he could perceive.  
  
He could only hope she couldn't read him better than he knew himself.  
  
He just wasn't sure anymore.  
  
"I thank the Choshu Clan most sincerely for its offer of assistance, but rest assured that the Imperial Forces are more than equal to punish the transgressers, should such an action be required."  
  
Her eyes found his like a hawk's. A faint smile graced her lips. This time it DID reach her eyes.  
  
However, it was not a pleasant expression. Nor were her next words.  
  
"Forgive my impertinance, My Lord, but you are mistaken. I was not offering the Choshu Clan's support, I was merely informing the Great Lord that he need not trouble himself over such a petty matter."  
  
Her smile grew only the very barest of degrees, but grow it did.  
  
"The Katsuras have already been dealt with. They shall not trouble us again."  
  
This time, despite his iron control, Godo could not hide his reaction. He had received no reports that the Katsuras were under attack, and if they were indeed finished...  
  
If the Choshu's had grown in power to THIS level, there might very well be no way to stop them, and with the throne hanging balanced on the life of a talented but oh so very mortal young girl, he could pretty much consider his daughter as good as dead. Oh, it would be determined to be an accident of course, but if she set foot on Wutain soil, she would be signing her own death warrant.  
  
At the hands of her own people.  
  
-Oh merciful Leviathan, what have I done?- He thought mournfully.

end of scene

Silent halls.  
  
The Katsura Ancestral Home was a decently appointed one, if not as steeped in cultural tradition as the Palace, or as lavishly decorated as the Choshu's. This was only natural, the Katsuras were a High Family, but they lacked the martial expertise of the Kisaragi line, or the years of staggering wealth that the Choshu Clan enjoyed.   
  
No, they were not the richest, nor the best warriors, nor most certainly not the most politically or civic minded.  
  
They were, in some respects the boldest, and the most ruthless, but it was the ruthlessness of a petulant, cruel and overindulged child, and the bravery of a fool.  
  
Some would say that that was enough.  
  
They would not say such was the case this day, however.  
  
The rich cedar floors were marred by the fallen bodies of Katsura ninjas, ferocious warriors who bravely stood their ground to the very end. Blood streaked the highly polished floors in surreal patterns, telling the story of betrayal to the trained observer.  
  
Jinnai Katsura and his pitifully small band of defenders had barracaded themselves into the ancestral shrine room, a blasphemous and desperate act, but one that had saved their lives, at least up to this point.   
  
Jinnai dazedly wondered how it had come to this... simply maddening. First the failure of his ninja to kill that interloper Vincent Valentine. That had been somewhat expected, after all, the man was a member of AVALANCHE to begin with, and had, in the time since the fall of Meteor and Shinra with it, forged quite a reputation as a bounty hunter. Most perplexing however, was how a man who spilled blood for money (Jinnai made no distinction between a bounty hunter and a thug for hire, although in his defense, there seldom IS a difference) would refuse a generous offer. He could only assume that whatever Godo had promised the contrary gunman, it was more precious to him than money.  
  
It is ironic that Jinnai was somewhat correct in this respect, even if he had no way of knowing what that was.  
  
Now everything was collapsing around him, his family was being executed by unknown attackers, and all his messages for help from his allies, those damnable Choshus', seemed to be falling on deaf ears.  
  
Who WERE these phantoms that slaughtered his best ninjas seemingly at will?  
  
In any case, they were about to get a rude awakening.  
  
"HURRY UP, YOU IDIOTS!" He bellowed, kicking one of the ninja servants struggling to remove the lid from a slightly dusty wooden crate only just moments before removed from beneath his family's altar. The top came off with a squeal of protesting nails and wood, and the contents were revealed.  
  
He smiled.  
  
It had taken years of planning and smuggling, bribes and outright thievery, but it looked like his "investment" was about to pay off.  
  
This crate, and the three being opened just like it, contained rows and rows of shiny black Shinra issue machineguns, still in their original factory sealed packages, greased and ready for war, with enough ammunition to mount a serious assault on the palace itself. Guns were severely frowned upon in Wutai, since the country was notoriously stubborn where technology was concerned. These Shinra stamped machine guns, not only the best and most highly recognized mass produced weapons in the world, were also outright illegal, a legacy of Wutai's past clashes with Shinra.  
  
Jinnai couldn't give a rat's ass, as long as they worked as promised.  
  
It took only moments for Jinnai and the ninjas to arm themselves, and if they were somewhat awkward in the operation of the submachine guns, this was hardly a cause for concern.  
  
One doesn't need to be too terribly familiar with a weapon that sprays out 950 rounds a minute in order to kill someone, after all.  
  
So they waited. An outside observer might have been somewhat amused to note that they resembled children huddled around, watching over their shoulders as though fearful that their parents might be just around the corner. The ninjas were good, but only human, and many of them had died this day.  
  
The sound of bootheels on cedar were deafening, as SOMEONE very delibrately made their way to the shrine room.  
  
Jinnai, always a firm believer in the golden rule (do unto others before they can do unto you) wasted no time.  
  
"Open fire!" He barked. To his credit, he didn't squeak.  
  
Too much, anyway.  
  
The ninjas obeyed instantly, startling him into silence with a staccato burst of gunfire at the closed shrine door. Hundreds of holes opened up in the door like magic, and the gunfire echoed long after the ninjas stopped firing to reload.  
  
Silence.  
  
A slow, inching thread of blood eased its way under the door.  
  
Jinnai blinked myoptically.  
  
"Did we...?" He started.  
  
One of the ninjas started towards the door, gun ready.  
  
All hell broke loose.  
  
The ruined double doors burst inward as the bullet riddled form of a Katsura ninja exploded through them, catching the closest ninja in an involuntary body tackle as the force of his entrance wrapped his arms around the startled fighter, bearing him to the ground. Gunfire errupted on both sides, but no one really knew who they were aiming at, and the lacquered pillars, the already bullet riddled corpse atop their downed comrade, and their downed comrade himself took the brunt of the fire.  
  
They missed the compact figure who rolled in past the corpse, having slammed it into the startled ninja in the first place, then rolled over the entangled ninjas and into the center of the room, and by the time they oriented on it, it was already too late.  
  
The figure was in an upright fetal position, buttocks and feet on the ground, arms crossed inward, braced between thigh and chest, head down. Small puffs of smoke emitted from either side of the figure, along with an almost polite coughing noise, lost in the din of gunfire. Two ninjas on either side of the figure dropped with two precise holes in the dead center of their chests, eyes already glazing in death. The figure bounced up like a jack in the box, impossibly tall and thin, revealing a gaunt, wolf featured man with an expression that could be called a strange mix of good humour and boredom. His gray hair was drawn tightly back into a severe poney tail behind him that ran to his shoulderblades, and he was dressed all in black.  
  
The man pivoted on the balls of his feet, and his arms spread out in wide deliberate arcs. In each hand he held an apparently silenced semiautomatic pistol, and ninjas dropped seemingly like magic as his hands crossed their paths. Both pistols clicked empty, their slides locking, and he dropped one, continuing his spin until he was behind one of the much abused pillars.  
  
The four ninjas who remained standing along with a stunned Jinnai Katsura were quick to open fire on the stranger, to their credit.  
  
Call the Katsura ninjas what you will... brutal... backstabbing... remorseless... cowards is not an appropriate term.  
  
It did them very little good.  
  
"YOU ARE OUTGUNNED!" Jinnai shouted, desperately. "THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO END IN VIOLENCE, I-"  
  
"Where is the fun in that, Herr Katsura?" A strangely accented, tenor voice rang out from behind the pillar. It was coldly mocking, a predator's growl. "The Choshu pay well enough. The rest is just blood, mein friend."  
  
"Choshu... but that's-" Jinnai started.  
  
"I suppose it is rather upsetting, ja? Still, I don't suppose you have the grace to accept your fate gracefully, bin ich korrekt?"  
  
More gunfire answered his query.  
  
A black gloved hand snapped around the pillar and a single shot rang out into the room, then the hand snapped back behind cover. Jinnai flinched, but it immediately became obvious that no one on his side had been hit, when the small bronze gong behind them rang mournfully.  
  
The tone vibrated around the room.  
  
"You missed!" Jinnai sang out happily. "Go ahead, waste your bullets! You can't have much!"  
  
Another ringing sound this one all too familiar came to Jinnai's ears. He blinked, then frowned in confusion. Who was drawing a sword?  
  
The realization that it was behind him came just a moment too late.  
  
He started to turn when he heard a clean hissing noise, and then his legs would not obey him. He caught the startled gaze of one of his ninjas as the man turned similarly, then watched in horror as half of the man's torso, one arm, and his head slid loose from his trunk and splashed messily onto the ground, spilling gore onto the floor.  
  
The other ninjas followed suit, in more or less similarly grotesque fashion.  
  
Jinnai's adam's apple worked furiously as he tried to make some comment, but his tongue also wouldn't obey him.  
  
The dark figure walked around the pillar and shook his head.  
  
"I do not waste bullets on dead men, Herr Katsura. Danke, mein Schattenblume."  
  
Jinnai Katsura, last of the Katsura line, fell to his knees as a line of red seeped from his neck. His head slowly toppled loose from his corpse, releasing a gout of blood, but not before he thought he heard a voice answering him... a feminine one... how odd...  
  
"I will never understand this absurd custom of removing one's boots when one enters a home, Reiko. It is verrückt... crazy, ja?"  
  
The man in black cocked his wolfish head at the demure woman in a maroon kimono before him. The woman in question regarded him not unwarmly, though certainly without much animation on her pretty face. She appeared, if anything, somewhat embarassed for him. It was hard to tell what Reiko was thinking, the eyes were the windows to the soul, and she had none.  
  
Or more accurately, if she did, they were hidden behind the low slung headband she wore.

end of scene

"It is a tradition, Jaeger-sama. A polite man removes his shoes before entering a house, so that he might not track filth in after him."  
  
Jaeger's grin narrowed slightly in answer. "Eh. What about filth IN the house? I'm not the one with Katsura guts all over my socks, ya?"  
  
Reiko did not bother to answer this, although it might have been because Lady Choshu had just made her appearance, gazing with distaste at the slaughterhouse the shrine room had become.  
  
"Such a filthy business, this. Did you have to do accomplish this task so...," she paused to find the perfect word, "garishly?"  
  
Jaeger busied himself by reloading his pistol and locating the one he'd dropped. "With all due respect, Frauline, we were hired to neutralize your enemies," he racked the slide of his pistol and slid it into a holster under his arm. "Clean costs more, ja?"  
  
Reiko bowed deeply and, as usual, covered for her often overly blunt companion. "Forgive us, Choshu-dono. We will endeavor to please, next time."  
  
Lady Choshu smiled faintly. "Nevermind. Speaking of next time, I have a new task for both of you."  
  
If they were wolves, their ears might have cocked forward in interest.  
  
"A man left Wutai several months ago, on an... errand for Lord Godo. He was a guest in the palace for a short time, and his hasty departure was... quite rude. I wish you to find this man and ensure he does not trouble Wutai with his rudeness ever again."  
  
"And does this condemned man have a name?" Reiko asked serenely.  
  
"Indeed he does. Valentine-"  
  
Jaeger perked up. "Valentine. Vincent Valentine?"  
  
Lady Choshu frowned. "You know this man?"  
  
Jaeger's eyes flickered dangerously. "A passing acquaintance, Frauline, forgive mein interruption."  
  
Lady Choshu looked at him strangely, but shook her head. "As you said, Vincent Valentine. He is not to be underestimated. He is reputed to be quite skilled."  
  
"With respect, Choshu-dono, so are we." Reiko answered quietly.  
  
"Indeed." Lady Choshu turned to leave, but paused deliberately, hiding her mouth with one perfect hand. "Oh... one more thing, a trifle really. He may be found in the company of a girl, one who is revered and... protected by Wutain law. If anything were to happen to this girl, it would be a deep blow to Lord Kisaragi... but accidents DO happen, in the barbaric world outside of Wutai."  
  
Jaeger and Reiko looked at one another, a look of understanding passing silently between them.  
  
Lady choshu made her way out of the room, speaking without turning. "DREADFUL accidents, my friends."  
  
The two smiled grimly at each other. It was a look that said perhaps these two were not so far removed from wolves, after all.

end of scene

Strangely enough, while Godo Kisaragi was having his good day relatively free of pain, Vincent Valentine was discovering new forms of it.  
  
This is not to say that Vincent had never felt pain before. In the long course of his life, or existence, as he might have put it, (Vincent is a gloomy sort) Vincent had been shot, stabbed, blown up, experimented on, maimed, and locked in a coffin for thirty years with the knowledge that the woman he loved was in the hands of his worst enemy, a mad man who would use her up and throw her away, and further more, WANTED to be there.  
  
Yes, it is safe to say that Vincent was no stranger to pain.  
  
Just, not the sort of pain that comes from being dropped off a large cliff with numerous leafy and not-so-leafy bits to stop his fall.  
  
Fortunately for him and more importantly, the girl he held onto, this fall was not strictly vertical. If it had been, there would have been nothing left to narrate in this story but the eventual disposition of the Vinyufficent grease spot that would mark their passing, though it certainly would have made for a SHORT narration.  
  
The gulf into which they had fallen dropped at a 90 degree angle for only about 9 feet, which is entirely survivable, if you know how to fall, which both Vincent and Yuffie did.  
  
The PROBLEM, was that it then became a 30 degree angle hillside, and not a remarkably clean one either. This was, after all, the jungle. The numerous exposed boulders, vines, thorny and otherwise, bushes and scraggly trees (also of the thorned and unthorned variety) provided just enough cushion (though cushion is a relative term) to make the fall survivable.  
  
It also made it take about five minutes.  
  
Vincent immediately realized there was no stopping the tumble down the cliff and did the only thing he could think of. He curled into a fetal position and rolled with it, with one important variation. He also realized that Yuffie, unprepared for the fall and with her hands bound, would be unlikely to brace herself for the tumble, and injury... (well, MORE injury) would inevitably be the result. So he wrapped himself into a ball AROUND the startled ninja girl, which had the unfortunate effect of causing her to curse, bite, punch and kick at him until she was too stunned from the jarring bounces of their impromptu Vincent/Yuffie California roll to continue her assault (about halfway down).  
  
The next few minutes became a jumble of confused images as Vincent and Yuffie tumbled down the mountain side with all the grace of an overweight and very angry Siamese Cat being forced down a slip n' slide with obstacles, namely, not very at all. Vincent kept his eyes shut but a catalogue in the form of pain proceeded as he bounced between two boulders, through a tangle of thorny vines, not quite cleared a bush of the non-thorny variety, and smacked off a tree.  
  
Yuffie also elbowed him in a very sensative but not polite to mention location, but fortunately Vincent didn't remember much else of the ensuing gravity induced beating.  
  
He lost consciousness.  
  
"Hello Vincent... It's been a while." The voice was dark, threatening and soothing at the same time, like silk sliding across a snake's scales.  
  
It was as familiar to Vincent as his own.  
  
Vincent weathered it as he weathered all things. In silence.  
  
"Still the stoic, silent marytr I see. How are you holding up, under the weight of your sins, Vincent? Tired of the cross yet?"  
  
He couldn't help himself. The demon always knew how to push his buttons, make him angry. This was a problem. Angry was bad.  
  
Angry was HIS playground.  
  
"I don't need you anymore, Chaos. I never needed you."  
  
This evoked that hateful chuckle that never failed to make him shudder. So many voices at once, Vincent's own personal army of demons showering him with spiteful mirth. Voices like worlds dying, cold wind howling.  
  
Madness come calling.  
  
"Vincent, my silly puppet." Chaos made a sound like a snort. "Your hypocrisy never ceases to amuse the living shit out of me."  
  
"I am no..."He started, but paused.  
  
"Not so sure are we? I kept you alive, you insufferable little speck. ME. When you were all alone in the dark, your HATRED for me, for what you'd become, for the man who took your woman, put you there... it kept you sane." It paused, thoughtfully.  
  
"Well... relatively speaking of course."  
  
"Never needed me? I AM you." It chortled.  
  
"No-."  
  
"Accept it. You owe me, Vincent. You owe yourself. Let it out, let ME out, just... let it go, all of it. Be free of pain... of sorrow, of loneliness. I can give you the oblivion you seek, but are too cowardly to give yourself. Be free of guilt, Vincent. Don't tell me you aren't tired of that insufferable burden."  
  
Vincent was tired. Bone tired. SOUL tired. He would be lying if he said the Demon's offer wasn't somewhat attractive. He'd spent a large portion of his life after Meteor, after Hojo, feeling like he had no place in this new world. The demon knew him too well, was too cunning. Two things stopped him though.  
  
Fear. What did HE know of oblivion? Vincent had come close... too close to madness in his little box. It had forced him to take a long hard look at himself, in the dark, with no illusions. His time spent with only himself for company had taken him to an important realization.  
  
He didn't like himself very much.  
  
What if oblivion was just eternity with one's mistakes with no way to set them right?  
  
What if all of those he'd wronged down the years were waiting for him with open, eager arms?  
  
Too many what if's.  
  
Even this might not have been enough. More important to Vincent was responsibility.  
  
He'd given his word. To Godo, yes, but to himself, more importantly. If he turned into Chaos, Yuffie didn't stand a chance, for if Chaos didn't get her, her multitude of enemies certainly would.  
  
And so, Vincent snatched himself back from the brink of the abyss and tiredly picked up the gauntlet of life's challenge once more.  
  
He sputtered awake, coughing up brackish water and crouched on the balls of his feet, swaying woozely as his head screamed pain at him. His head, no, his whole body felt like one big bruise. He checked himself for damage, (important things first, Death Penalty, other weapons, then himself) noting that while none of his weapons were damaged, the few potions and curative items he'd kept on his person had not, being either strewn about the course of his descent, or crushed and ground into his cloak.  
  
He stood up, flipped his wet hair out of his eyes and cast about, looking for Yuffie.  
  
He found her relatively none the worse for wear about ten feet away (relatively meaning it looked like she'd been hit with a mudbomb the equivalent strength of a tactical nuke) dazedly inch worming her way to freedom down the west bank of the foot wide stream that ran at the base of the gully they'd ended up in.  
  
She was making surprisingly good time, too.  
  
He sighed, staggered to his feet, (looking down, he realized he didn't look much better) then started after her.  
  
Thus began the low point of Vincent's life, to date.  
  
Every time he reached down to pick her up or help her, she snarled at him. Finally, he gave up and simply followed along side her, waiting for her to give up.  
  
This took about 45 minutes, by Vincent's reckoning. In that time, (She was fast on her belly, but not THAT fast. Moreover, she was perfectly capable of standing up and walking. She was trying to make a POINT, however, about what a dickhead Vincent was being. Vincent, unfortunately, didn't get the symbolism of this act.) he studied their surroundings. The gully was narrow, only about fifteen feet across, but the sides of it jutted upward, the sky mostly obscured by foliage. Vincent estimated that the walls were probably fifty to sixty feet high, too high and too steep to climb easily, and since he'd lost ALL sense of direction from the pounding he'd received, he figured the path of least resistance (namely, the one Yuffie had chosen) was as good a choice as any.  
  
As if things couldn't get any worse, as night fell, it began to get cold.  
  
She finally stopped, and Vincent stopped with her.  
  
She awkwardly rolled to a sitting position and glared death at him, her face covered in dried mud. It is a tribute to her outrage that Vincent avoided looking at her, but it was also quite possible that he didn't care.  
  
As usual, it was hard to tell with Vincent.  
  
"I'm not taking another step, Vincent." She announced.  
  
She immediately regretted this statement, as she hadn't been walking a whole lot.  
  
He pointedly raised an eyebrow, sitting down across from her.  
  
"Shut up, Vinnie." She muttered, too tired to get properly outraged at the moment. Telling Vincent to shut up tickled her sense of irony, but she was also too tired, cranky, and upset to laugh, either.  
  
As often happens in the jungle, it started to rain. Like most rains in a torrential area, it started as a few small droplets, then skipped the drizzle step and proceeded immediately a nice, steady downpour. They were shielded somewhat by the canopy ovehead, but they were all too soon soaked. The upside of this was that the rain made short work of the mud and blood from numerous small cuts that clung to her skin.  
  
The downside was, it was miserably wet and cold.  
  
"I h-h-h-hate you, V-V-Vinnie." she chattered, miserably, on the verge of tears but DAMNED if she was going to visibly cry in front of him. She huddled her legs to herself in an effort to keep warm.  
  
Then Vincent did something that went down as the second most shocking thing to happen to date in her admittedly short life, the first being the death of Aeris.  
  
He suddenly stood up, stepped next to her, looming for a moment. She blinked at him for a moment, staring up as rain dripped from his sharp nose and the tips of his long black hair. His face was expressionless, as usual, his eyes brooding.  
  
Then, just as suddenly and without warning, he sat down behind her, his long blackclad legs going to either side of hers, soiled boots splashing into the mud.  
  
"V-vinnie... what the hell are yo-"  
  
"Shhhh." He whispered. It was an odd sound, and it took her a moment to reconcile such a human noise coming from Vincent.  
  
"Geez, Vinnie, did you hit your head harder than-"  
  
She stopped when tentatively, as though he hadn't quite decided this was the right thing to do, his arms curled around her, the warm human arm, then the alien metal one. As carefully as he tried to keep from touching her with his metal limb (as though he were ashamed of it) some contact was unavoidable. Surprisingly it was not at all like she thought it would feel... warm with some inner heat and light, where she expected cold heavy metal. He draped the cloak over both of them and sat, silent and unmoving.  
  
She started to protest this, after all, this was Vinnie, the asshole who'd PUT her in this situation, not to mention the fact that this was the closest she'd ever come to a man who wasn't her father, and who's ASS she wasn't kicking, but he wasn't making a big deal of it, and he wasn't squeezing or crowding her really...  
  
It was odd...  
  
-He's probably only doing it for some practical reason. Yeah... that's it. He's conserving body heat. That'd be just like him. Pragmatic to the bone.-  
  
"I still hate you, you know." She muttered, but she made no real effort to get free of him.  
  
This didn't explain how comfortable, how... natural the situation felt... but it was good enough for her tired mind, at least, for now.  
  
The trials and exertions of the day had taken their toll, and it was warm and while not cozy, at least not as miserable as it had been. Vincent made a hell of a good umbrella, she had to admit. He was so tall that the cloak didn't leave much of her exposed, in her huddled position, though it was somewhat awkward, considering the fact that her hands were bound behind her. They were pressed up against his chest (at least, she HOPED it was his chest, considering how it rythmically rose and fell).   
  
She was falling asleep and fighting it, but it was not a battle that she was going to win. It was impossible to remain as pissed as she had been that day and not wreak an emotional, mental, and physical toll on one's self.  
  
"...Hate you..." She murmured, yawned hugely, then quickly dozed off.  
  
Vincent, for his part, simply stared off into the distance and said nothing in reply, but then, Vincent seldom did. 


	5. The Sordid Details

Disclaimer: There are some things in the Author's Note at the end that may upset some of you. If so, don't read it. This is your first and only warning.   
  
"Sometimes I remember, the darkness of my past. Bringing back these memories, I wish I didn't have. Sometimes I think of letting go, and never looking back, and never moving forward so, there'd never be a past. If could change I would, take back the pain I would, retrace every wrong move that I made I would, if I could stand up and take the blame I would, if I could take all the shame to the grave I would. Just washing it aside, all of the helplessness inside, pretending I don't feel this pain, is so much simpler than change. It's easier to run, replacing this pain with something numb, it's so much easier to go, than facing this pain here all alone..." -Linkin' Park, Easier to Run  
  
Vincent had been accused of being many things in his long and somewhat miserable existance. Vampire, zombie, demon, these things were common words used to describe the eerie, silent gunman. If Vincent were to be perfectly candid with such an accuser, he would have had to tell them that he wasn't sure WHAT he was...  
  
He knew that he started out as human, but that had all changed with betrayal, a gunshot, and a seeming eternity of hellish experimentation. What he was now... only the Planet, and Professor Hojo, in whatever cold, agonizing hell they'd reserved for him, could be certain.  
  
Neither one was talking much.  
  
He knew that he wasn't normal. Before the resounding "Duh!" sounds, let us remember that Vincent wasn't the most normal individual to begin with. Before the Mako experiments, he was inhumanly fast and graceful, like a cat.   
  
The list of his differences after the change was... considerably longer.  
  
His wounds healed impossibly quickly, his reactions had been sharpened to a razor's edge. He could see in the dark, or at the very least, close to it. He was over 70 years old and yet remained as youthful as he had the day he'd been shot.  
  
Of course, there was the arm that set off metal detectors at five paces, and the matter of the particularly touchy demons hidden away just beneath the skin of his soul, but those went without saying.  
  
The point of this little insight into that most enigmatic of characters is simply that with Vincent, outside appearance can and very often are... deceiving.  
  
For instance, at the moment, Vincent was NOT asleep.   
  
Certainly to the untrained eye he might appear so, but if one were to observe him carefully, one would occasion to notice that he was quite aware of his surroundings, at least, at a subconscious level. Every little noise and crack of breaking foliage brought a subtle awareness.  
  
Certainly Vincent was exhausted, and had he been afforded the opportunity, he would sleep.  
  
However, sleep was denied him. This was an unfortunate side effect of being Mako "enhanced". The treatment that was refined into standard fare for SOLDIER recruits was first tested on the enigmatic gunman, and it had all the landmarks of an early, clumsy attempt at Mako enhancement, the first adolescent, backseat fumblings of science. As such, Vincent didn't dream.  
  
He remembered.  
  
Unfortunately, there weren't many memories of his past life that were pleasant, and there aren't many things one can do in a coffin BUT remember. This might go a long way towards explaining certain personality quirks of his.   
  
Equally unfortunate was the fact that the demon within him had the ability to choose WHAT he remembered, when he decided to rest. It goes without saying that the demon did not allow him to remember things that might give him the strength to continue his fight with apathy and grief. Just one more example of the underhanded tactics the demon had unleashed upon his battle weary psyche during the thirty some odd years of constant struggle for supremacy.   
  
People had accused Vincent of being unable to forget about the past and move on.  
  
People were right.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
It was a hot, sticky night in Junon, and the guards clustered miserably around the barracaded Reactor, wishing for all the world they didn't have to be there, this evening. Certainly they shouldn't have been. Unions, or the organizing of Unions, had been forbidden by the Shinra top brass, and yet the Junon Mako Reactor had been silent for several days, courtesy of disgruntled workers who had lost too many comrades to poor safety conditions, incompetant maintenance, and even less competant management. The resulting rolling brownouts were raising quite the shit storm in the various townships surrounding the Reactor.  
  
The workers were on strike.  
  
The management didn't take this too well, since the organization of strikes was also strictly forbidden (as per an upper management urgent memo) but after a few run-ins with the security detachment attached to the Reactor, and then when that proved inadequate, the local law enforcement, the strike had become more a siege, in all actuality. One that showed no signs of relenting, at least any time soon.  
  
The Shinra Corporation was losing millions of gil in revenue every day the Reactor remained unoperated. This was, of course, unacceptable.  
  
None of which much mattered to Barney Filmore, Security Guard for the Junon Reactor. In his armor he sweltered, and frankly, he could give a rats ass as to what the conditions were like on the Reactor floor. The only worry on his mind, aside from passing out from a heat stroke, was the likelyhood of him retaining his rather comfortable (usually) position as a guard from whom control of a multi-billion gil Reactor had wrested control from.  
  
Thus it was that in the middle of the third revision of his somewhat limited resume, he was nearly startled out of his wits by the tall, silent figure in the blue suit who appeared out of the gloom before him like magic.  
  
He dropped his pen and clipboard and reached for his submachine gun, as the figure came closer. The figure resolved itself into a tall man, pale, with just shy of shoulder length black hair neatly tied in a poney tail behind him, his eyes hidden behind black sunglasses, even at night. His suit was immaculate, pressed and starched and perfectly tailored. He carried a flat black and silver metal briefcase, and wore tight, black leather gloves.  
  
He was expressionless, all business, and moved with all the confidence of a professional killer, the grace of a shark cruising through cool midnight waters.  
  
All of this went without saying however, to Barney, as he recognized the tell-tall signs of a living nightmare standing before him.  
  
He was a Turk.  
  
"Sir, excuse me sir... may I see some-"  
  
The Turk eyed him silently, then in one fluid motion reached into his coat and removed a black wallet, flipping the top flap to reveal his identification.  
  
Barney made a show of examining his ID, then saluted and opened the security gate. The Turk entered silently, turning to regard Barney once he'd closed the gate.  
  
"Where is your supervisor?" He said quietly, his voice a smooth, monotone tenor.  
  
"Er, that'd be Captain Marsh, sir. I could take him to yo-" He gulped and let out a breath. "I mean, I could take you to him. Sir."  
  
The Turk continued to eye Barney for a moment, then almost imperceptively shook his head. "No. Continue manning your post. I'll find him."  
  
"A-as you wish, sir." Barney fumbled a salute, then turned back to the security gate, diligently watching the road, his clipboard and pen lying forgotten a few feet away from him.   
  
He didn't envy the Captain. He didn't envy him at all.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Captain Marsh was a busy man. He'd been up for almost 48 hours, and it showed. As the Shinra Captain on duty, the security of the Reactor was his overall responsibility. That meant that anything that happened during his watch could be considered his fault, at least in the eyes of the higher ups he so desperately wanted to impress. For an up-and-comer like Marsh, this sort of situation was a nightmare made reality.  
  
The door quietly opened and closed, and Marsh didn't bother to look up.  
  
"Marcus, you remembered to bring my coffee didn't you? Don't tell me I have to tell you aga-"   
  
"Captain Marsh, I presume?" A unexpected, dry, monotone tenor caused Captain Marsh to look up to see who had entered his post.  
  
Look up and scowl.  
  
"A Turk, huh? Listen here, son. I ain't impressed. I've got a helluva situation on my hands, an' with all due respect, I don't need one of you thugs aggravatin' the situation any worse."  
  
The Turk was equally unimpressed. He cocked his head slightly. "With all due respect Captain, if I'm here, the situation is already as aggravated as it is going to get."  
  
"What I need is a negotiator, that's the only thing that's gonna solve this situation without destroying that damn Reactor, or getting some damn managers killed, so unless you got some real fancy papers in that briefcase of yours, I suggest-"  
  
"I am here with the full authority of the board of trustees, and with the President's approval. I am, as you put it, here to negotiate." The Turk fixed him with a gaze that wouldn't allow the older man to turn away, like a snake staring down a baby bird. "Frankly, this situation has gone beyond your ability to handle it. Now, either you can give me your full cooperation, or I can handle YOU. Your choice."  
  
Captain Marsh swallowed, his mouth suddenly cotton dry. Something told him that this was not a man he should be playing "who's got the bigger corporate dick" with. He got the impression the Turk would quite gleefully hand him his ass.   
  
Gift-wrapped.  
  
"Lemme give you a head's up on the situation." He said, quickly.  
  
A glimmer of something that might have been a smile crossed the man's features. "Wise choice."  
  
Captain Marsh gestured to a map that up until three days ago had been a blueprint of the building. It had been scribbled on, various doors and hallways marked as impassable and such, showing that the workers had done quite a reasonable job of securing the building.  
  
"Three days ago, around four o'clock the workers simultaneously stopped working at their stations and shutdown the main Mako pump. They immediately surprised and subsequently subdued the ten guards on duty, depositing them outside the facility. No contact was made for four hours, during which a list of demands was sent out stapled to one of the managers, of whom there are currently three being held hostage. An attempt was made to retake the Reactor, but subsequent teams discovered that all of the side and rear entry ways had been welded or blocked shut, and came under heavy small arms fire when the main entry way was tried. The local police tried to force the doors, they were unsuccessful."  
  
The Turk was silent, apparently unconcerned. In fact, Captain Marsh wasn't entirely sure he was listening. Eyeing the quiet man uneasily, Captain Marsh continued.  
  
"The local police then attempted to use tear gas to disorient the workers, then made a second attempt at forced entry, this was also rather brutal repelled, upon which it was discovered that the workers were using their hazmat suits to circumnavigate the gas." Captain Marsh grimaced. "Apparently those suits are good for SOMETHING."  
  
"Is that all?" The Turk asked quietly.  
  
"That's about it." Captain Marsh sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.   
  
"Do you have a way to contact them?" The Turk continued, not missing a beat.  
  
"Yeah, they've responded to our megaphones in the past, though they've been quiet lately." Marsh noted.  
  
"Tell them a negotiator is being sent. Tell them the Company wishes to redetermine the conditions of their contract."  
  
"They aren't exactly looking upon corporate suit types like you with favor, sir. Are you sure you want to-" Captain Marsh muttered.  
  
"Just do it, Captain." The Turk ordered.  
  
The Captain sighed. "Your funeral."  
  
The Turk ignored him.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"HOLD YOUR FIRE, WE'RE SENDING OUT THE NEGOTIATOR!" The words echoed out into the night, met with only silence.   
  
The Turk walked forward slowly, gloved hands raised, briefcase in his right hand. As he walked, he noted that the muzzles of several guns followed his progress towards the dark building, and behind them, dark, angry eyes. Eyes that itched to reduce him to a bloodsoaked blue rag.  
  
It didn't much impress him. His expression showed no more animation than it had when he was talking to the guard outside. He stopped once he heard a haggard voice shout out at him.  
  
"That's far enough, Corporate Dog. You keep those hands up, ya hear? You drop 'em, or move an inch, and you'll be so full a' holes they'll have ta hunt across the tarmac lookin' fer all your teeth ta identify ya, ya got me?"  
  
The Turk nodded quietly and kept very still, hands raised. They let him stand like that for a full five minutes, whether from indecision or purposefully, the Turk wasn't sure, nor did he much care. Finally, the double doors opened, and two burly workers, one an older individual, full of swaggering confidence, the other a young man with just a hint of a limp to him, came slinking up towards him, guns pointed at his chest.   
  
"Cover 'em, Zeke. I gotta search him. He moves, you blast him."  
  
"Gotcha." The younger man, nodded enthusiastically, looking as though he wished the Turk would move.  
  
The Turk did not, despite the rough treatment the grizzled worker gave him as he searched the man for weapons. He seemed to take a perverse delight in ruining the taller man's perfect image, pulling out one shirt tail here, unbuttoning a button there, tugging up one pants leg here. Throughout it all, the Turk waited in impassive silence, until finally the Worker regarded his briefcase.  
  
"Whatcha got in the case, Suit?" He asked crudely.  
  
The Turk regarded him. "Papers. Pens."  
  
"Riiight. Why don't you just hand that over so I can make sure?" He scoffed.  
  
The Turk never missed a beat. "You can't open it. It's keyed to me, specifically."  
  
The guard glowered suspicious. "Then why don't YOU open it, Suit."  
  
The Turk shrugged and released the catches on the case, opening it and then turning it around for the worker's inspection. The man rummaged through it thoroughly, then looked up at the Turk disappointedly as though he was hoping it held something other than what the man had said was in it. He eyed the Turk for a long, poignant moment, then jerked his head towards the man, never taking his eyes off of him.  
  
"He's clean."  
  
The Turk closed the briefcase and allowed himself to be roughly led at gunpoint into the silent Reactor.  
  
They took him into a short, claustrophobic hallway, made more so by the chairs and broken up tables stacked to provide a more bottlenecked chokepoint. The Turk made no effort to resist the brutal pace the angry workers turned jailors made for him, concerning himself only with returning his appearance to its previous serenity as he walked. Once again pristine, he continued the journey, past the guard post, which was now manned by three hazmat suited workers with captured Shinra submachine guns, and onto the Reactor floor, currently silent. A grey, tired looking man who obviously had not shaved in three days flanked by two other men in hazmat suits with the helmets flopping over their shoulders, and submachine guns slung, stepped forward to meet him.  
  
They did not offer to shake hands. The weary looking man who appeared to have the most authority looked him over dubiously, then cleared his throat.  
  
"I guess it was too much to hope for that they'd send one a' the upper brass, huh?"  
  
The Turk said nothing. If anything, his silence merely confirmed the resistance leader's suspicions.  
  
"Well I don't know who you are, Suit, but you've got balls, I'll give you that. How'd you know we wouldn't just shoot you as soon as look at you?"  
  
The Turk gazed back at him blandly, his poker face completely perfect. "I didn't."  
  
The leader nodded, his only reaction to this blatant disregard for personal safety being one raised bushy grey eyebrow.  
  
"Like I figured. Balls. Balls, or so goddamn crazy it don't matter what happens to ya, huh? Well, maybe you'll do right by us, Suit. Maybe. Man with those kinda stones, he'd not be too concerned what those who ain't been in the thick of it think of 'im, would he? Maybe..." the leader raised a handkerchief to his mouth, coughing thickly into it. There was blood on the fabric when he lowered it. "Maybe even do something that'd upset some folks, if it were the right thing to do."  
  
The Turk continued to stare at the leader without concern. The leader continued anyway.  
  
"So are you just a mouthpiece, or can you actually do something fer us?"  
  
The Turk cocked his head slightly, then spoke in a quiet, monotone tenor. "I have been granted full authority by the board of trustees and the President of Shinra himself to handle the situation." He responded smoothly.  
  
"Well, that's just swell, ain't it boys?" The leader hawked and spat, the blood-mottled, grey spittle pattered scant inches from the Turk's black, mirror shined shoes. The Turk never batted an eye.  
  
The "boys" in question made a growling, angry affirmative. The leader continued.  
  
"'Fore we start this little tour, I want you to look each a' my boys in the eyes, an' tell me what you see?"  
  
The Turk glanced around the room, then looked at the leader. "A glow. Phosphorescent, a little green. Various severities."  
  
The leader continues. "'s called Mako-"  
  
"Poisoning," The Turk interrupted. "Yes, I'm aware of the situation. Judging from the number of cases, I'd say several levels above the safety limit."  
  
The leader took the interruption in stride. "Good, so you ain't completely ignorant. The safe limit o' Mako exposure is forty-three milligasts per week. These suits," he gestured at the hazmat suits, "Have internal gastometers that are supposed to chime when the safe limit is hit. Key word, SUPPOSED to."   
  
He gestured for the Turk to follow him, though in truth he wasn't given much choice when his "escorts" roughly moved him along. The leader stopped at the reactor floor, next to a barrel of irridescent green fluid. He nodded.  
  
"This here's Mako contaminated water. Minimal exposure ain't so bad, long as you don't get it on yer skin. It don't radiate too much, Mako has this wierd property a' becoming mostly stable when mixed with water, or any natural substance, fer that matter. Point is, this stuff produces less than 3 er 4 microgasts radiation per hour, which ain't a whole lot worse than natural daily exposure. Contact with it..." He grimaced. "It'll turn yer eyes bright neon green and kill ya in jus' a few days. 50 gasts per square inch exposed."  
  
The Turk took this without batting an eye, as well as when the leader dipped an unused helmet into the mixture and poured it back in. Mako contaminated water beaded clearly on the internal gastometer.  
  
It was dead silent.  
  
The leader tossed the helmet aside. It clattered noisily on the metal floor.  
  
"That's just one of many safety violations, Mr. Suit. If you'll follow me, I'll show ya a few more."  
  
The tour began. Throughout it all, the Turk remained quiet, though obviously focused, as the resistance leader pointed out a gruesome checklist of workplace violations. Subsidance on the Reactor floor had allowed the heavy Mako shielding to sag, allowing the upper tier of monitor instruments and gantry ways, common access points used at all times through the day, to be exposed to unhealthy amounts of the deadly radiation. The coolant system had numerous corrosion caused seam leaks, allowing the contaminated water to drip steadily onto the Reactor floor. This runoff then spilled into the sewage system, where due to improperly sealed pipes it then contaminated the Reactor's own drinking water supply; a supply the workers were forced by Shinra regulation to drink from daily to prevent loss of manhours by dehydration in the often brutally hot hazmat suits.   
  
The list of employees who'd had to take sick days to recooperate from workplace related injuries, Mako caused or otherwise, was appaling.   
  
Equally appaling were the number of workers laid off without compensation due to permenant illness, and thus, inability to work.  
  
Or families uncompensated when the accidents led to more gruesome results.  
  
The leader finally stopped and regarded his silent charge with quiet contempt. "You don't talk much, do ya?"  
  
The Turk regarded him fully. "You didn't seem to want someone to argue with you. You wanted someone to listen. Was I wrong?"  
  
The leader shook his head. "Naw... yer right. It don't matter much ta me, ya understand. I ain't got much time left." He gestured to his brilliant neon gaze. "'S fer the other, younger fellas. An' fer their families. The pay is good, ya unner stand, but there ain't much else ta do in this town, 'cept work fer Shinra, an' us uneducated folks get sent ta places like this."  
  
He turned to stare at the Reactor floor. "Workin' here is a death sentence, Suit. Maybe a year, maybe several, but it catches up ta ev'rybody. All we want is what Shinra said it'd provide inna first place; a safe goddamn workin' environment."  
  
He glanced up. "My son starts workin' here in jus' three weeks, Suit. I want him ta be able to play with his gran' kids."  
  
"That's all we got ta show ya, Suit. If you'll come this way, we'll show ya were we can all sit down an' hash this out."  
  
The Turk was led past the beaten but still very much alive managers, bound and gagged in a supply closet not too far from the breakroom where the meeting would finally take place. As he passed, they pleaded with him silently with their eyes, recognizing him for what he was.  
  
He ignored them.  
  
The resistance, some fifteen souls minus the three guarding the gate, were gathered in the small breakroom. Judging from its upholstery and refrigerator, it was probably the managers' break room. It was also too small for the number of people in it, but clustered as they were around the Turk and his briefcase, this hardly mattered much.  
  
The Turk set the briefcase down on the table, then flipped open the case, revealing several papers. He pulled these out and regarded the leader quietly.  
  
"As I said, I have been granted full authority to handle this situation. Not only to resolve the current conflict, but to ensure that it never happens again. Obviously some reports are being falsified, since the extent of the damage I've seen far exceeds what I was told to expect."  
  
The leader and his men looked at one another grimly.  
  
"In order to ensure this Reactor remains fully operational, and that such a situation never happens again, this reactor will be shutdown until it can be brought completely up to code, and new regulations will be codified to ensure this state of neglect never happens again."  
  
The leader let out a deep breath and smiled, as his men cheered loudly, clapping one another on the back.  
  
The Turk let them cheer for a moment, then glanced up, continuing without a single change of expression.  
  
They stopped cheering.  
  
"However, this strike is clearly a violation of contract, and in the event of a breach of contract, both parties, the contractee and the contractor, have the right to renegotiate said contract."  
  
The Turk set the papers down quietly, but they fell with all the weight of a coffin lid.  
  
"Shinra corporation, as the contractor, has no wish to renegotiate these contracts."  
  
The workers looked in confusion at their leader, who stared at the Turk grimly. "So what yer sayin' is-"  
  
"Your contracts have been severed, by you, as soon as you started this strike. As such, you have no rights to any sort of compensation, and no legal recourse. You are therefore no longer employees of Shinra Corporation, and are currently tresspassing on private property."  
  
He closed the briefcase with a snap, then regarded the leader with cold finality.  
  
"You will vacate the building, or you will be removed."  
  
"What the?!" The leader snarled out, standing and slamming his fists against the table. "What kinda bastard ARE you? This.. this is-"  
  
"If you are concerned about paying for damages caused during the strike, allow me to assure you that Shinra Corporation has decided to write off said damages."  
  
"You can't just... I've... we've got families to feed! Where else are we going to work?!"  
  
The Turk shrugged. "I don't much care. You have one choice at the moment. Are you leaving or not?"  
  
"You can't be friggin' serious!!" The man thundered.  
  
The Turk watched him steadily, as the workers angrily pressed in, just inches from violence. Several fingered their weapons.  
  
"Yes, or no?" The Turk said calmly.  
  
"You son of a bitch, NO!" The leader said angrily.  
  
"As you wish." The Turk said, then pressed down on the briefcase handle with only his middle and ring fingers.  
  
The papers on the desk immediately flashed up, having been impregnated with a highly flammable substance and remotely keyed to a detonator in the briefcase handle. The resulting explosion wasn't very big, scarcely raising a blister and certainly not blackening the faux-wooden tabletop on which the papers rested. What it was, however, was agonizingly bright, as well as loud. Everyone in the room, with the exception of the Turk, who's eyes were closed and currently shielded behind dark sunglasses, and who had well disguised flesh-toned earplugs, staggered back clutching their abused ears and bumping into one another in blinded, disoriented agony. The Turk grabbed the briefcase and ducked down low, then slipped through the milling, angry, stumbling crowd to its edge, pulling several oddly shaped portions of the metal briefcase from their cleverly concealed locations and reattaching them in a slightly... different configuration.  
  
Everything was quiet for one surreal second, and then the dull slide-click of a slide behind drawn back echoed through the room.  
  
The room errupted in a cacaphony of angry shouting voices.  
  
"What the hell was that?!"  
  
"My eyes, I can't friggin' see!"  
  
"Where is that son of a bitch, I'll kill him!"  
  
"I think I've got 'em!"  
  
"That's me you friggin' moron!"  
  
"Quiet you dumb bastards, I can't hear-"  
  
A strange sound echoed through the room. It was like a cross between a dry pop and a clicking noise, followed by the thumb of something striking flesh at high speed. A sort of "plick-thump".  
  
It sounded two more times.  
  
Plick-thump. Plick-thump.  
  
A muffled, weezing groan/sigh followed by the sound of a body striking the ground heavily.  
  
"That sonuvabitch just shot someone!"  
  
"Get the bastard."  
  
Gunfire errupted into the room, from several different sides. Shrieking and wailing soon followed, as the leader yelled at the top of his lungs.  
  
"CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE GODDAMNIT, YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE! WHO'S FIRING, YOU'RE HITTING OUR OWN GUYS!"  
  
The cacaphony continued.  
  
"AH, MY LEG, HOLY PLANET IT HURTS, I CAN'T MOVE MY LEG!"  
  
"Errrrggg." Gurgle, thump.  
  
Plick-thump.  
  
"Erk....uhhhhh." Thump.  
  
"Who was that, goddamn it, call out! Names folks, can anybody see?"  
  
Only seven voices spoke aloud.  
  
"I can't even open my damn eyes, they hurt so much."  
  
"I think... I think I'm startin' ta see somethin'"  
  
"Where is that son of a bitch?!"  
  
"Oh god, my leg..."  
  
Plick-thump. Plick-thump.  
  
"ARGH!" Something clattered loudly into a table, collapsing it, then the noises stopped.  
  
Plick-thump, Plick-thump, Plick-thump.  
  
The room got quieter.   
  
Finally...  
  
"Bill? Bob?"  
  
"Joe?"  
  
"Zeke?"  
  
"Who the hell are you? I know you're still out there. Where ever you are, you son of a bitch. I can't see you, but I know you're there, watching me. Your time is comin'. Sooner or later, someone's gonna come along who you can't shove under the carpet. Sooner or later, Shinra ain't gonna need you no more either, and then you'll see. You'll-"  
  
Plick-thump. Clack.  
  
"Beck....y..."  
  
Silence.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
He walked out of the room, smoke still slowly oozing from the silenced silver and black pistol he held loosely in his right hand. He walked without a sense of urgency, his long legs eating up a naturally ground eating pace, as though he had nowhere particularly important to go.  
  
He released the current magazine from the pistol and reloaded a fresh one, releasing the slide back into its ready position. Then he stepped into the storeroom which contained the three bound and gagged Managers.  
  
They looked at him with a mixture of gratitude, fear, and awe.  
  
He stared back.  
  
Out of the corner of his gaze he caught sight of the Reactor floor, with its steady drip of contaminated water, and its malfunctioning gastometers. He remembered certain falsified reports that had led to this.  
  
He raised the pistol in a graceful, almost lazy fashion. Three sets of eyes widened in sudden, shrieking alarm.   
  
Muffled protests.  
  
Plick-thump.  
  
Plick-thump.  
  
Plick-thump.  
  
A lone man walked out of the storage room.  
  
He didn't look back.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The three hazmat suited workers continued watching the narrow entry way into the facility in monotonous boredom. Anyone who has ever stood any kind of watch knows that after a while, you start making up things to entertain yourself, anything, to keep you alert, and awake. The three had long since exhausted any sort of personal stories, and were quite frankly, bored to tears with one another.  
  
Still, they kept up the small talk, since it was something to do.  
  
"So what do you think'll happen Hal?"  
  
"I dunno Frank. I hope this whole thing ends soon. I'm gettin' pretty tired of this standin' around, doing nothin' routine."  
  
The third, quieter one shift his submachine gun over one shoulder and frowned.  
  
"How do you think the meetin's going?"  
  
"Probably not very well..." Frank spat. "Them corporate goons 's all alike. Not a soul between the lot of 'em. He'll throw alotta corporate mumbojumbo at us, then things'll go back ta bein' the way they was."  
  
"You really think so? I hope not." He looked down and sighed. "I really hope not. Me an' Liz were thinkin' about having kids, you know?"  
  
A knock on the inside door startled all three out of their skins. Curious, Hal turned and opened the door.  
  
"What the hell?!"  
  
The man in the blue suit stood before them, though he no longer carried his briefcase. Instead, in his right hand, he held a strangely shaped silver and black pistol.  
  
"Since you three missed the meeting, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. Leave now, or be dealt with."  
  
The three guards stared at one another in slackjawed amazement.   
  
"The fuck you say?"  
  
The Turk shook his head slightly. "I said leave."  
  
They blinked at him stupidly.  
  
"NOW." He intoned. It held with it the finality of the grave.  
  
It would never be known what made Frank decide to raise his submachine gun. Maybe it was the way the stranger stood there, relaxed and poised, with weapon in hand, brazenly waiting for them to move. Maybe he just didn't like the smug bastard's tone. In any case, raise it he did, and in a heartbeat, the silver and black gun jumped up as though it had a life of its own, coughing politely.  
  
Frank slumped back, a single perfectly round black little hole in the left part of the goggles of his suit.  
  
"Holy shit!" Hal thundered, then reached for his own submachine gun, which he'd set down on the desk in front of him.  
  
He never made it more than a few inches. The gunman shot him neatly in the back of the head. He slumped over his weapon then slid to the ground, his right boot twitching spasmodically.  
  
The last man stood shaking, raising his hands quickly as though to ward off evil. "Wait, I-"  
  
Seeing the man raise his hands quickly out of the corner of his eye, the Turk turned and shot him twice in the chest.  
  
He groaned softly then fell slowly onto his face, a pool of blood quickly spreading from his prone body.  
  
The Turk turned quietly and, before the blood could even reach his shoes, walked out of the guardpost, pocketing his pistol as he went.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The guards didn't expect to see anyone leave the silent Reactor. As such, for a moment they simply stared in shock at the still perfectly attired gentleman who walked casually towards them. He no longer carried the briefcase, instead, he had a cellphone in his right hand. He was speaking into it. Captain Marsh only caught the tail end of the conversation.  
  
It was enough.  
  
"-done. Send a helicopter. I'll be waiting outside." A pause. "Eliminated. No, I don't think that'll be necessary. Agreed. Yes sir, I'll be waiting." He hung up.  
  
Captain Marsh blinked at him.  
  
"What... do you mean, eliminated?"  
  
The Turk raised his calm... no, not calm. Dead, like a shark's gaze, empty and cold, a bottomless pit, gaze up to the Captain, and blinked slowly.  
  
"The tresspassers are all eliminated. The strike is over." He said quietly.  
  
The Captain licked his lips, as the guards around him looked at each other uneasily.  
  
"W-What about the hostages?"  
  
The Turk cocked his head. "I was given orders to terminate the employment of all those in the building, and eliminate the subsequent tresspassers if they refused to vacate the premises." He paused, blinking. "They didn't vacate."  
  
Captain Marsh shook his head, stunned. "They COULDN'T vacate! They were goddamn tied up!"  
  
The Turk stared at the Captain for a moment longer, then shrugged. "Orders are orders."  
  
"What the hell do you-"  
  
The Turk narrowed his eyes. "Captain, you and your men have a building to secure. I suggest you secure it. I have a chopper to catch."  
  
The Captain stuttered to a halt. He blinked, woodenly.  
  
"Need I remind you that employee interferance in official Turk business is grounds for immediate termination?" The Turk said quietly. Something about the way he said termination made the Captain blanch.  
  
"N-no... I'll... um." He turned to his men. "YOU HEARD THE MAN, MOVE!"  
  
They moved.  
  
When he turned back to the Turk, the man was already gone.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The wind from the helicoptor tossed the Turk's coat and pants legs around violently, wiping small bits of debris around in the clearing. He stood watching it impassively, his black sunglasses covered gaze following its progress. n it got close enough, a black gloved hand reached out from the interior and helped him onboard. The black chopper raised up into the night sky and disappeared to points unknown.  
  
Onboard, the man who'd helped the Turk in grinned at him, his short blonde hair hardly tossled from the wind.  
  
"Excellent work, Herr Valentine."  
  
Vincent Valentine did not answer the younger Turk, he simply leaned back into the wall of the chopper and continued the ride in quiet solitude.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
-So, did you like my little presentation, Vincent? It's one of your better moments. I like to call it, "Portrait of a Professional Psychopath".- As usual, the demon's voice was smug and oily in his head, like a spot of mold on an otherwise pristine apple.  
  
-That was a long time ago, Chaos.- He thought back, but even he could taste the insincerity of his comeback.  
  
-You and I both know that time means little to someone like you, Vincent. Once a killer, always a killer. Isn't that how it works? You are and always will be a wolf, Vincent. No matter how many sheep suits you put on.-  
  
Vincent was silent. After a pregnant pause, the demon continued.  
  
-I was just thinking you needed a little reminder. You've been acting a little too... heroic of late. I wouldn't want you thinking that little girl should be looking up to you, Vincent.-  
  
-There's no danger of that, Chaos.- He thought tiredly, then paused. There was a defensiveness that was seldom present in the demon's tone. It aroused Vincent's curiousity.   
  
-Why should you care?-  
  
-I don't.- The demon answered, a trifle too quickly. -YOU do. I'm just making sure you know how these things end, Vincent. Wolves don't protect little girls. They eat them ALLLL up.-  
  
-Yuffie is a strong girl, Chaos. If it comes to that... she can take care of herself.-  
  
-Reeeally? Then why, pray tell, are you here, Vincent?-  
  
-Because she's also even more stubborn and singleminded than...-  
  
The demon's voice turned sickly sweet. -Than who, Vincent?-  
  
-You know who, demon.-  
  
-I just want to hear you say it.-  
  
-What does it matter? She's dead.- saying that, thinking it, still hurt, even after all these years.  
  
-Not for you, Vincent.-   
  
-Not. For. You.- The demon's laughter faded out once again into blessed silence.  
  
At least, for the moment.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Yuffie awoke to severe amounts of pain.  
  
Not to say that her current sleeping arangement wasn't comfortable. Well, it wasn't, actually, but that wasn't her companion's fault.  
  
Then Yuffie remembered that it basically was, and this annoyed her all the more.  
  
Every muscle in Yuffie's body screamed at her for the abuses she'd put it through up to this point. Yuffie's brain reminded it that this was a dictatorship, not a democracy, and her body fell silent, brooding and plotting vengeance.  
  
She groaned and opened one sleep encrusted eye. With sight came awareness of other little details, like the weather had gone from frickin' freezin' to good Lord it's hot.   
  
Funny, how jungles will do that to you.  
  
Another, more pressing need caught her attention. She bit her lip.  
  
"Vinnie... are you awake?" She croaked.  
  
Vincent's reaction was subtle, but noticable. He breathed in deeply, then let it out in a sigh that mussed her hair.  
  
"Geez, could you answer, please?" She said, irritated.  
  
"Yes." He answered.   
  
Though he didn't clarify which question he was answering.  
  
Not that it mattered much.  
  
"I think it's stopped raining." She said awkwardly, then cursed her stupid brain for coming up with such an idiotic remark. What was with this guy, that he made her turn into a drooling moron?  
  
Vincent didn't answer for a long time, then he sighed again. "Yes."  
  
"So, um... does this work with all the girls, or just me?" She said, trying to break the one-sided tension a bit.  
  
In answer he stood up and stepped over her, his joints creaking in an oddly comforting, human manner.  
  
"Jerk." She stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
He turned and stared down at her, an unreadable expression on his blank face.  
  
She avoided looking at him, fidgeting slightly. "Anyway... I, uh... kinda have to..."  
  
He didn't even bat an eye.  
  
"That is, I gotta go... you know."  
  
He blinked.  
  
"Geez Vinnie! Do you have to be such an insensative PRICK all the time, or is it just with me? What is it about me that makes you such an ASSHOLE?! I gotta PEE! You happy now?! Do I need to draw a damn diagram for you?! Oh wait, I CAN'T! My friggin' hands are tied. Gee, I wonder who did that!! Asshole!!"  
  
He took a single step around her side, then crouched down, fiddling awkwardly with her bonds. She felt them loosen, and the somewhat sluggish circulation returned to them, giving her pins and needles. She rubbed her wrists.  
  
"Thanks, Vinnie. Why the hell'd you tie me up, anyway?"  
  
He gave her an unamused look.  
  
"Oh yeah... I kinda ran away." She answered her own question.  
  
"That reminds me..." She looked him seriously in the eyes, adopting a quizzical expression rather than an angry one. Which was not to say she wasn't still angry, just that her need to know why he'd done it was more important to her than letting him know she hadn't forgiven him.  
  
"Why did you shoot me, Vinnie?"  
  
He looked at her cooly for a few moments, then raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said you had to go to the bathroom."  
  
She pouted at him. "I do, but I wanna know." She leaned forward.  
  
"Tell me!" She ordered, then noticed that their faces were considerably closer than the conversational topic strictly called for. Embarassed, she leaned back. "Please?" She'd never tried polite before with Vincent. It might be worth a try.  
  
Gee, ya think?  
  
He regarded her for a moment, then sighed. "Have you ever tried to save someone who was drowning?"  
  
She blinked at this sudden, unexpected answer. "No... what the hell does that have to do with-"  
  
He continued, blandly. "Someone who's panicking forgets everything they know, about swimming or anything else. They just react."  
  
She frowned, but quietly.  
  
"If you just go in and try to save them, chances are they'll end up dragging you down with them."  
  
She narrowed her eyes, not liking where this was going.  
  
"When it comes right down to it, someone who's unconscious is alot easier to save then someone who's flailing around." He finished quietly.  
  
She thought about this for a moment, then scowled at him. "I wasn't panicking. Nor was I drowning, Vinnie."  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "That's not the point."  
  
"Well then what the hell IS? Oh I get it, I'm NOT as fucking stupid or clueless as you people seem to think, and you know what Vincent? You're just like Godo, you think you know what's best for me? That you can just come in and run MY goddamn life?! Why is it that nobody thinks I can decide what's damned best for me!? Well the hell with you, Vinnie! I-"  
  
"You're right."  
  
"Fuck you! I'll don't care what y... huh?"  
  
He sighed. "You're right."  
  
"I am?! I mean, yeah, so..." She deflated. "You really irritate me, you know that, Vinnie? I had a good head of steam going there."  
  
He shrugged. Only a little shrug, but a shrug nonetheless.  
  
She stood up. He followed her.  
  
"Well, I..." She stopped, looking around, as though for the first time. Severe cliff faces faced her to the north and south, and east and west the gorge continued until the natural bend of the walls cut off the view of further down.  
  
"Where the hell are we?"  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you had to go to the bathroom."  
  
"I just said that to get to you to take off those ropes." She said flippantly. "We've moved past that, Vinnie. Try to keep up."  
  
He sighed.  
  
"Well, where the hell are we?"  
  
"I thought you weren't interested in my opinion." He said. Then blinked, as though surprised at himself.  
  
She took it completely in stride. "I never said I wasn't interested in you, Vinnie... just that you don't have any right to run my life. Up to and including shooting me in the leg and tying me up, then taking me somewhere I already said I didn't want to go."  
  
He sighed. "Point taken."  
  
She brightened. "Does this mean you aren't taking me back to Wutai?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Dang."  
  
He turned to the east. "We were headed in this direction before we fell into this crack. We might as well continue until we find a spot that's easy enough to climb out."  
  
She grinned at him. "You know, this is the most I've ever heard outta you, Vinnie. Should I be writing this down? Is this qoutable Vincent?"  
  
He started walking east.  
  
She followed after a short time.  
  
"Don't get used to it." He said, after a while.  
  
"Oh. My. Gawd. Was that an attempt at humor?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Nice try, Vinnie. Your delivery was off, though."  
  
More silence.  
  
"You kinda have to snap 'em back for it to be effective. Like, five seconds or less."  
  
Still more silence.  
  
It just continues along this vein for the next few hours, so lets just leave them to it, shall we?  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
A/N: I know some of you are thinking at this point, "What the fuck?!" Two months of waiting and all we get is a thirty page flashback scene, some schizophrenic ranting, and barely five pages of Vincent/Yuffie?   
  
My answer is, of course, that this flashback is a necessary evil.  
  
Something disturbed me about alot of you readers recently that I wanted to get off my chest. In chapter 2, when Vincent coldly dispatches the helpless machine gunner on the last lizard, the response I got from alot of you was that this was cool.   
  
It took me a moment to wrap my head around that. I mean, here we have this former VILLAIN who's trying to redeem himself, and yet he's still pragmatically ending lives without much thought.  
  
This doesn't disturb any of you? I think people have fallen into the trap of believing that what Vincent did back in his Turk days was "OK" because he's such a cool character in the now. Not because he's trying to redeem himself, but because he's cool. I don't know if I'm ok with that. I mean, I like cool gun fighting scenes and violence as much as the next man, probably more so, but I don't think its cool to just end somebody's life without thinking about it. That's what kinda got on my nerves about the Matrix... I mean, I understand that these people don't know you're trying to save them, and that they're trying to kill you, but does that make it alright to just haphazardly slaughter your way through them? That really bugs me, and I apologize... I used this fic as a way to illustrate this.  
  
Yes Vincent is cool. Yes he's a badass. He's also a man struggling to climb out of the mire that was his former life. Vincent is convinced that there is no salvation for him, and most fics just kinda skim over that.  
  
I think it's really important. That's why I wrote that scene the way it is.  
  
Is Vincent an unrepentant killer?   
  
No.  
  
Is he a killer?  
  
Yes.  
  
Even then, I tried to show that there were some SEEDS of redemption in him, because other wise, how could he have fallen in love? In the flashback, the black far outweighs the white, and I think its important to stress that.  
  
Vincent makes a very good villain, I think. Does he make a good hero?  
  
I guess that'll depend on him... and Yuffie, won't it?  
  
In any case, lemme know what you think, ok? I appreciate you all hanging on as much as you have, I really do.  
  
Chris, DT 


	6. Stolen Moments

A/N: Ok people, I apologize for this. The good news is that this chapter is ALL Vincent and Yuffie interaction, because it is definately past time for them to advance, as it were. The bad news is, I wrote and rewrote this chapter about five times before I was finally satisfied with it, and it still doesn't feel totally right.  
  
I don't know if this is just me being my own worst critic, but I guess this is a time when I'm gonna need an outside opinion to really know for sure.  
  
Let me have it, people.  
  
Also this chapter suddenly developed a live of its own about three quarters of the way through, and I want you to know that I DID NOT intend it to end up the way it did. It just flowed out of me, and even though there is some... possibly out of character interaction, it felt very... I don't know... powerful, so I kept it the way it was.  
  
Again, let me know what you think. If I sound hesitant or unsure of myself it's because I am... I actually almost hurt myself writing this chapter... got maybe a little too deep into it. You other writers might know what I'm talking about. If there is anything wrong with this chapter, it stems from me maybe putting a little too much me into it.  
  
That being said, enjoy, please.  
  
"He seemed no different from the rest. Just a healthy normal boy. His mama always did her best, and he was daddy's pride and joy. He learned to walk and talk on time, but never cared much to be held. And steadily he would decline, into his solitary shell. As a boy he was considered somewhat odd. Kept to himself most of the time. He would daydream in and out of his own world, but in every other way, he was "fine". He's a monday morning lunatic, disturbed from time to time. Lost within himself, in his solitary shell. Temporary catatonic, madman on occasion. When will he break out, of his solitary shell?" -Dream Theater, Solitary Shell  
  
It was hot. Unmercifully hot. The kind of heat that was made all the worse because of the humidity, an ennervating, mind-slowing, leeching heat that crept up on you and stole your clean underwear when you weren't paying attention. Still, even in such an oppressive environment, life, in its neverending diversity, intruded into even the most sour of moods. The air held the moisture so well that rainbows abounded everywhere the light was captured just right, and a thousand different jewel colored insects made their presence known, filling the air with an almost bone-felt buzz. The jungle was a cacaphony of life, and it raised even the dimmest of spirits.  
  
Yuffie had removed the sweater/shirt she normally wore, revealing a thin black tank top, and rolled down her socks, so that the still damp cloth wouldn't cling so disgustingly to her skin. Her companion had made no concessions to the heat, however, and walked beside her in silence. She'd prodded him for a few more details, just for the companionship mind you, but he seemed to have gone over his human interaction qouta for the day.  
  
It really annoyed her.  
  
It wasn't that he was ignoring her, which he wasn't. He watched her quietly, and his facial expressions did change, leading her to believe he WAS listening to her. It was just that he didn't open his mouth... didn't add any personal input whatsoever. Most people listened to others only so they wouldn't miss their chance to take up the conversational reins when it was their turn. Vincent just listened, content, apparently, to actually hear what the other person was saying.   
  
Which meant that everything Yuffie had to say had to be meaningful, damnit. She didn't know what she'd do if Vincent thought she was an idiot. The fact that he was willing to... talk? Ok, maybe not, but INTERACT, with her made her feel special... more grown-up, in a way. Of course, she was still very annoyed at Vincent, maybe even a little hurt by him, but after her angry tirade, it was what he hadn't done that had made her anger dissipate into surprised, elated shock. He HADN'T blown up or patronized her the way Godo would have, hell, the way any other supposed "adult" would have. That was the thing with Vincent, he LISTENED. He even recognized the fact that she had a valid point, that she could think. She loved Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others, she loved them very much, but they'd never really listened to her. They'd listened to him, of course. All he'd had to do was speak in that quiet, "miss it if you weren't paying attention", tone of his, and everyone else (her included) would shut up and listen. He only said something when it mattered. Vincent seemed to enjoy solitude and silence, or at least, found them tolerable. She had to fill up the emptiness with noise. With life.  
  
A fundamental difference between them, she thought. Maybe it wasn't so much that he enjoyed the solitude, just that he was used to it. Maybe he'd given up trying to reach out to others, because so few reached out to him.  
  
That was unbearably sad.  
  
"Hey Vinnie..." She inserted after an uncharacteristically long silence (about three minutes).  
  
He cocked his head at her. She had begun to realize this meant he was listening intently.  
  
"How far do you think this thing goes?"  
  
He blinked slowly.   
  
She waited for a response. He gave none at first, and she was about to insert her own comment when he startled her with an answer.  
  
"This is an unstable area, Yuffie. Rain and mudslides can open up all sorts of cracks. It could go on for miles."  
  
She grinned, a crack of white in her sun-darkened, slightly bruised, mud-spattered face. Neither one of them was looking their best. Frankly, they were both beaten up and impossibly filthy from the tumble down the hillside and subsequent downpour. Still, her grin and the carefree manner in which she held herself made her attractive despite, or perhaps because of this downtrodden image.  
  
Vincent shifted ever so slightly, uncomfortable with that line of thinking.  
  
She put her hands behind her back and deftly balanced her way heel-to-toe across a narrow, unstable branch lying across a deep puddle.  
  
"You know Vinnie, I've never been very fond of my name." She said, somewhat distractedly as she crossed.  
  
He stepped easily across the puddle, saying nothing, but casting a sideways glance back in her direction.  
  
"It sounds so... I dunno... childish, I guess. I don't know what m-... Godo was thinking."  
  
He raised an eyebrow.   
  
"But... I like the way you say it, Vinnie. You're always so serious all the time, the way you say it makes it sound... pretty."  
  
He stopped and looked back at her, a slightly pained expression on his face.  
  
"Geez, it was a compliment Vinnie!" She said crossly to him, hopping off the branch and stepping around him.   
  
"I realize this is a bit of a stretch for you, but lighten up, dang it."  
  
Vincent shook his head slightly, as though clearing it, then followed behind.  
  
-----------------------------------------------  
  
"Oh thank you, Leviathan! Thank you soooo much."  
  
The object of her praise looked a bit out of place for a crack in the middle of a jungle, but not so much that Vincent felt suspicious. The muddy ground gave way to a pebbled, rocky build-up, obviously lying here undisturbed for years. A curving side-passage of sorts had opened up off the main crevasse, terminating after several feet in a fifteen foot expanse of pebbled beach. A small pond had formed naturally, and the water gleamed seductively in the subdued, filtered late afternoon light of the jungle.  
  
She plunked down at the water's edge and kicked off her shoes, removing her socks just as quickly. Dipping her feet into the water, she sighed contentedly.   
  
"Vinnie, it's perfect... cool, but not too cold." She smiled again, then turned to him imperiously. "That settles it. We are definately stopping here for the day."  
  
He raised an eyebrow in a sardonic, "since when are you in charge" sort of way, then switched his gaze to the still waters of the pond, searching for any signs of danger.  
  
"Oh I am SOOO gonna-"  
  
"I don't think it's a very good idea, Yuffie." Vincent said dubiously.  
  
"Vincent, I am crabby, I am filthy, and I stink." She wrinkled her nose. "So do you, for that matter. Who knows when we're going to find out way outta here? This is a gift! A bit of good luck, finally, and I intend to take advantage of it."  
  
He sighed.  
  
"Look, I know you don't wanna be walking around sweltering all the time! It's not like we're on a time table or anything! Besides, I'm tired and sore, Vinnie. It won't do us any good stumbling around in the dark exhausted. We should use this opportunity to rejuvenate ourselves." She grinned mischievously and rubbed her hands together.  
  
He crossed his arms, frowning.  
  
"Fine, mister gloomy-pants. You sit there and marinate in your own filth. I'M taking a bath."  
  
He sighed again.  
  
"Well, what are you still standing there for? I'm not gonna do it with you standing there, lech."  
  
He shrugged and pointedly stepped back around the bend, leaning against the dirt wall.  
  
-------------------------------------------------  
  
She watched him round the bend, then quickly removed her dirty clothes and waded into the pond quickly, splashing around for a moment before settling down. The caked on mud, blood from the various small cuts she'd sustained, and sweat washed from her body, and she dipped down into the cool, dark waters up to her ears and bubbled a contented sigh upward.  
  
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING, VINCENT!" She called out, then dipped her head under the surface and scrubbing out her short dark hair.   
  
In the twilight water it was hard to make out any details, but she could swear she saw a cloud of dirt billowing away from her in the cool water.  
  
Coming back to the surface, she tossed the water from her and eased down a bit, considering her situation thus far. Granted, this is not how she would have liked to spend her time in Gongaga jungle, and certainly her erstwhile companion had an amazing knack for pissing her off without expending any effort towards doing so, but she had to admit, Vincent was a interesting man.  
  
He'd always been that way for her, this dark, enigmatic, brooding, handsome-  
  
Handsome? Where the hell did that come from?  
  
Well, she decided, while we're on the subject, and purely from an aesthetic point of view, he IS attractive. Take away that raggedy ass cloak (gawd that thing's probably older than I am) and he might actually fall into the hunk category.  
  
Yup, she thought to herself, he's definately not someone I would kick outta bed for eating cookies.  
  
She giggled to herself at this unlikely image. Just the thought of dark brooding Vinnie solemnly eating chocolate chip cookies in such a setting was like imagining Barrett in a ballerina costume, vaguely disturbing, and patentedly ridiculous.  
  
She lay back in the water and floated with her eyes closed, considering the situation as it stood. Eventually, she was going to have to ditch ol' Vinnie, she supposed. It wasn't that he was bad company, it was just that he was dead set on her returning to Wutai, and she just couldn't bring herself to allow that, not even for Vincent. Still, ditching him was something of a problem, because the man had already shown a remarkable amount of tenacity just tracking her this far, and this was Vinnie, not some old pushover like Sung. She couldn't beat him, at least, not without trying to kill him, and she just wasn't going to do that.  
  
Not that she was entirely sure she could beat him if it even came to that, the man was scary when he got angry.  
  
So she supposed she'd just have to bide her time and, like her ninja forefathers before her, slip away when her pursuer was otherwise distracted.  
  
Probably by a situation she'd created.  
  
In the meantime, this was a good opportunity to get to know her silent, contrary companion. Maybe crack open his solitary shell and see if she couldn't get to know the man inside.   
  
------------------------------------------  
  
-Well... isn't this... cute?- The demon sounded smugly sarcastic.  
  
Vincent sighed.  
  
-What's wrong Vincent? You don't see what's so patently wrong with this situation? Who do you think you're fooling, killer?-  
  
-I think you've been picking at this for a while now, Chaos. Why, I can't begin to imagine. What is it about this girl that you find so threatening?-  
  
The demon was silent.  
  
-Are you afraid of her?- Vincent mused, half simply trying to get a rise out of him. It was rare that he came across a subject that showed any signs of fazing the demon. It felt good to have a bit of role reversal, to feel in control for once.  
  
-Don't be stupid, Vincent.- The demons scoffed. -I will admit a certain morbid curiousity as to why she fascinates you so much. Before you protest, remember... I see what lies behind your eyes, killer.-  
  
A chuckle. -I am, after all, what stares back at you from the mirror.-  
  
-My, aren't we a barrel full of metaphor today?- Vincent thought sarcastically. Still, the demon's reaction caught his attention. As stated earlier, Vincent was a master at deluding himself. It helped to ease the pain, somewhat. The demon wouldn't often let this go over, however, pointing out those subjects which Vincent tended to gloss over as too painful. This wasn't a painful subject, merely uncomfortable, but the demon actually seemed more discomforted by it than he was.  
  
-I would think you'd be overjoyed at the situation. I can't imagine what you'd like to do to her, if I let you get your filthy claws on her.- He shuddered at the thought.  
  
The demon's response stopped him short.  
  
-Vincent, all this time we've been locked together like this, and you still haven't realized the only person I enjoy tormenting is you?-  
  
That stopped him short. -I...-  
  
-I've seen your soul, Vincent. I know what a cold-blooded, murderous bastard you are. You have it all wrong, killer. You look at me like I'm the stain on your soul, the personal demon that makes you who you are. The truth is, humanity doesn't need divine intervention to create the basest form of callous cruelty, and the same holds true for YOU. You are responsible for your own corruption, not I. I'm just stuck with you, and I detest self-delusion. I didn't ASK to be thrust upon you, by that detestable little slug Hojo, and I so I helped you get your vengeance, because it was MINE as well. Do try to remember that I find you as reprehensible as you find ME. The sooner you give up and embrace oblivion, the happier we'll both be. I say this because I know your sort, Vincent. You can leave it behind you, wash away the blood on your hands and try to lead a respectable life, but the only thing that seperates you from the killer inside is a thin veneer of circumstance. Find the right situation, and you'll kill again.  
  
Because for you, killing isn't nearly as hard as it should be... human life is meaningless to you, how can it have meaning when you don't even value your own? You never will, either... not since you lost HER.- The demon sneered.  
  
-I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Vincent. You drove her away. Your darkness. She got a little too close to the real you, the killer, and it scared her so badly that she turned a blind eye to that slug of a human beings faults and embraced him. THAT'S what killed her, Vincent. The realization that she loved a man who could hold her one minute and then coldly execute a whole family without an increase in heart rate the next. How could someone... no, someTHING like that love another human being? How could she know you wouldn't turn on her, if your masters told you to?-  
  
-I LOVED her! I NEVER would have hurt her! I would have left Shinra had she asked it of me...-Vincent swore vehemently.  
  
-I know that. Yet... she never asked. Maybe she knew you a little better then both of us, eh?-  
  
-Why are you DOING this to me?- Vincent asked finally.  
  
-Because I can, Vincent. Someone has to.- The demon sneered.  
  
-------------------------------------------------------  
  
She eventually finished her soak and made her way out of the pond, giving herself a few extra minutes to air dry before trying to put on her still dirty clothes, an act which raised a grimace of distaste on her features. Still, she felt soooo much better now, she didn't know what Vinnie was so worried about.  
  
Speaking of...  
  
"HEY VINNIE! I'M DONE, IT'S YOUR TURN NOW!"  
  
There was no response at first, so she rounded the corner and snuck a glance at him. He was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, apparently in a trance.   
  
"Hey... did you hear me, Vinnie?" She asked, somewhat wierded out by his vacant expression.  
  
His face tightened and awareness apparently returned to him, he flicked his gaze over in her direction.   
  
"What was that just now, Vincent?" She asked pointedly.  
  
He sighed, looking very tired for a moment before he hid it away behind that mask of his. She was beginning to hate that expression.  
  
It wasn't the real him.  
  
"Are you done?" He asked quietly.  
  
"Yup, it was refreshing. Now it's your turn." She said, crossing her arms.  
  
"I'm not-"  
  
"Yes you are, Vincent." She grabbed his arm and yanked him to a standing position, dragging him towards the pond. "you are going to take a nice, refreshing bath if I have ta drag you in there and scrub you myself."  
  
He set his feet and she found it hard to drag him, so she got around behind him and started shoving on him.  
  
"Stop.... being... stubborn... and... do... what.. I... SAY!" She panted behind gritted teeth.  
  
He turned around and grabbed her wrist roughly. "Stop it, Yuffie. This is not a game-"  
  
She yanked her wrist away from him and put her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. "Game? Who said I was playing around? Come on, Vinnie. You're just annoyed 'cause this is turning out to be a good idea. Stop being an ass."  
  
He actually glared at her.  
  
"Don't you DARE treat me like a child, Vincent Valentine." She hissed, looking defiantly right into his eyes.  
  
He continued to glare at her for a moment longer, then raised an eyebrow. "What are you still standing there for? I'm not going to do it with you standing there." He said finally. "Lech."  
  
She blinked, then blushed and backed away from him.  
  
"I wasn't, I mean I... aw geez Vinnie, just hurry up, ok?"  
  
He continued to stare at her with one raised eyebrow until she backed around the corner, then sighed to himself.  
  
"How did I get myself into this?" He asked himself softly.  
  
---------------------------------------------------  
  
This was torture.   
  
She didn't know HOW the hell it had become torture, but it had to be Vinnie's fault. When he'd turned her earlier jibe back on her, he'd embarassed her enough to make her retreat, but what he hadn't realized was the direction this lead her thoughts to.   
  
See, Yuffie was insatiably curious, and few things made her more more antsy then the solution to a mystery sitting right in front of her. In the time she'd known Vincent, she'd never seen him even partially undressed, not even with just that ratty old cloak off. Even though it was tattered, it still hid a large portion of his form, not to mention most of his face. Having had the "is Vincent cute" conversation with herself, certainly didn't help.  
  
Nope, she thought, not a good idea. If he caught me, I'd die of embarassment.  
  
She waited.  
  
I mean, this is Vinnie we're talkin' about... it's not like he's gonna suddenly change into a completely different person the minute he takes off that cloak. Not to mention those cloth- GRRR! What the hell am I THINKING!! I'm such a pervert!  
  
She waited some more.  
  
It's just plain stupid! I mean, yeah, I am a pretty sneaky individual, but this is Vinnie! He'd catch me for sure!  
  
Temptation reared it's ugly head.  
  
Well... I guess I am... alot better than I was when I was a kid...  
  
I wonder if I'm sneaky enough to...  
  
NO! Good thoughts in, bad thoughts out. Good thoughts in, bad thoughts out...  
  
She blinked, looking down at the dirt wall under her fingers. She'd scaled about ten feet up, towards the steeply sloping ledge that split the two passages.  
  
What the hell?! How did I get up here? Curse you, hormonal teenage body, you've betrayed me!!  
  
She railed against herself.  
  
Well... since I'm up here...  
  
She heard quiet splashing in the water just beyond the lip of the ledge.  
  
Oh this is sooo wrong. He is never going to forgive me if he finds me here.  
  
She peaked over the edge, then darted back below the lip of the ledge.  
  
Didn't see nothin'. He must be right under the ledge. I am so gonna get caught...  
  
This didn't stop her from slowly peeking over the edge of the ledge, down into the pond.  
  
She caught sight of his clothes, neatly folded and tied up in his cloak, his gunbelt secured around the bundle. Death Penalty was propped within easy reach in such a manner that it wasn't directly touching the beach other than it's stock. It gave the impression that Vinnie was ready to grab his clothes and be ready to move at a moment's notice. How utterly typical of him.  
  
She couldn't see him at first, and there were no ripples in the water to mark his presence. She frowned at first, and then he broke the surface slowly, like a dead thing slowly rising to the surface... only this wasn't a good analogy at all.  
  
For one thing, even though he was pale, he didn't move like a dead thing.  
  
For another, he was just too cute to be a dead thing.  
  
His back was to her, and she caught sight of his shoulder length hair dripping water behind him, flat against his lean, well muscled back. He wasn't as thin as Yuffie thought he might be, not skeletal at all, in fact. Just lean, and rangy, like a wolf or a panther. His shoulder muscle on his fully human side was well defined, it was obvious that Vincent was in good shape. His metal arm was physically attached to his body at the shoulder, a somewhat bulky metal ball and socket joint replacing the normal shoulder joint. Water beaded on the golden metal of his false arm, and it moved like it was his own flesh.   
  
Then she saw the scars.  
  
He had alot of them, slices and ridges of tissue where he'd been injured over the long years of his life, as well as strange, surgical looking scars, as though someone had gone at him with a scalpel seemingly at random. She winced in sympathy, trying to imagine what it must have been like for him so long ago. She knew he'd been with the Turks, even heard that he'd been experimented on by Hojo, but no one would ever tell her the whole story, especially not Vincent. Her eyes were drawn to the starburst like scar in the center of his back, just to the right of his spine. Long, hard experience with Shinra technology told her that this was a gunshot exit wound, but an injury there should have killed him.... would have killed a normal man.  
  
He glanced to the left of him and she caught the side of his face in profile. Able to see his mouth for once, and having spent time with him in close proximity, she thought she detected a hint of something... a sadness about him. He seemed to be staring down in the water, at his own reflection, she guessed, watching it be distorted by the ripples he created. His mouth twisted slightly, turning down, as though he was disgusted by what he saw. It was an intensely intimate action, something she'd never seen him do before, and her breath caught in her throat at the anguish of it.   
  
It was then that she knew that Vincent Valentine was a soul in pain. It surprised her, this sudden insight. He'd never given any indication of any sort of emotion... in fact, Tifa had once remarked that Vincent scared her because he just seemed so dead inside, and at the time, Yuffie had had to agree. When he killed, and granted, with the exception of the man trapped under the giant lizard a few days ago she'd never seen him kill in anything but self-defense or defense of his friends, there had never been any animation to his face, a sort of disconnection from his own actions that chilled her to the marrow. She could never figure out what motivated him. Yuffie's heart beat just a bit faster, as it occurred to her that this was a side of him that no one, not even Tifa, whom he'd had the most interaction with besides Cloud, who was their leader, had seen of him.  
  
She also felt ashamed, because she'd stolen this intimacy from him, intruded on his solitude, his pain, without his permission. Would he thank her for the pity she felt now? Certainly not, not since he went to such lengths to hide it from everybody. For the first time in her life, Yuffie had stolen something she wished desperately she could give back, but she couldn't. Regret filled her.  
  
Again, this was not an emotion that she dealt with much, and she recoiled from it instinctively.  
  
I'm sorry, Vinnie, she thought quietly to herself. I wish...  
  
She never completed that thought, she simply turned and slipped back down the cliff-face quietly, deeply entranced in thought.  
  
Vincent looked up at the cliff side from his introspection for a moment, sensing something, but seeing nothing, he turned back to the business at hand.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------  
  
After Vincent had finished his bath, the light of late afternoon was fading into that transitory, fleeting golden twilight that marked the fall of night. The shadows grew longer, and the sounds of the jungle gave way to the grunts, squeaks, groans and grows of nocturnal animals, predator and otherwise, waking up from their light time slumber. Vincent went about gathering various fallen branches and sticks, bits of dry moss and such, preparing a small campfire, while Yuffie sat close by, her arms around her knees, quiet, subdued, and brooding.  
  
Vincent wondered what was wrong, but said nothing.  
  
As the evening progressed she watched the fire crackle and pop, as Vincent went about cleaning his revolver with methodical patience. Every once in a while he glanced up from his work and searched her face, but her gaze was centered very far away, and he simply went back to what he was doing.  
  
"Vinnie... Vincent, I mean. Why don't you ever smile?"  
  
Her voice was quiet, and uncharacteristically subdued. It was this muting of tone that caused him to stop what he was doing and glance up questioningly, one eyebrow raised.  
  
"You didn't even smile when we beat Hojo, or when Shera scolded Cid for being away so long and he damn near fell down the stairs trying to get to her. Everyone else did..."  
  
She stared at him, intently.  
  
He flinched at bit from her earnestness. "I suppose..."  
  
She cocked her head slightly.  
  
"I suppose I just... never had anything to smile about." He said, finally.  
  
"But wasn't killing Hojo what you were after? Wasn't that... your atonement? Wasn't that... supposed to make everything alright?" She asked, falteringly.  
  
"Yuffie..." He said, hesitatingly.   
  
"Please, Vincent. I... want to understand. I know you think I can't, but... I really want to understand you." Her eyes shimmered with emotion, emotion that Vincent found very uncomfortable.   
  
He shifted uneasily, but found himself unable to simply dismiss her sincerity. He collected his thoughts, hesitated a moment more, then caught the pain in her eyes and started.  
  
"Killing... Hojo... should have felt right." He said, after a long time. "It should have been over after that. But it didn't feel like anything. He was just dead, and I was just the one who killed him."  
  
Her expression become one of sadness.  
  
He looked at her gently, the revolver in his hand forgotten, for the moment.  
  
"Yuffie... sometimes, good people do bad things, and sometimes, bad people do good things. What matters is the intent behind them."  
  
His earlier conversation with Chaos came back to him, and he lowered his gaze a bit, speaking without really considering his own words.  
  
"I don't think I've ever been a good person, really. Everything I ever did, I did because it was expected of me. Was killing Hojo a good thing? I think so. He hurt alot of innocent people, and he would have continued to do so, if we hadn't stopped him."  
  
She nodded slowly, on the verge of something... almost not WANTING him to continue. It was obviously very painful for him to admit these things. Her heart sank and became a leaden weight in the pit of her stomach.  
  
"But I didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, Yuffie. I did it because I wanted to... to hurt him, after everything he'd taken from me, all the pain he'd caused me. But his death didn't change what I was. It didn't suddenly make me a good person. Just because I'd been the victim for once, just because I'd suffered, that didn't make me a good person either."  
  
He sighed.  
  
"I don't think I know what being a good person is."  
  
"You're wrong, Vincent." She said, her voice breaking with emotion. "You ARE a good person. You just can't see it. Well I'm... I'm gonna show you... some day. I swear I..."  
  
He face crumpled and she broken down and began to sob.  
  
"I'm s-s-so s-sorry, Vincent!"   
  
What was she sorry for? She was sorry that he had been hurt so badly, so many times. She was sorry he'd been betrayed by those he loved and yet still clung to their memory because it was the only good thing he'd ever known. She was sorry that he'd sacrificed everything, every possible positive human interaction he could have had, not because he was afraid of being hurt, but because he was afraid of hurting anyone else.  
  
She was sorry she'd intruded on his solitude, had hurt him, making him explain these things to her.  
  
She cried.  
  
Vincent blinked at her in astonishment. He'd only ever seen her cry once in the whole time he'd known her. When Aeris had died so violently, been ripped from all their lives seemingly without any concern by Sephiroth, a cruel child hurting others partly because they were in his way, but mostly because it amused him, she'd broken down and wept for the lost Cetra, like a child who'd lost a sibling. For an instant, just an instant, he'd started to reach out, to comfort her, but he had hesitated, and she'd turned and buried her face in Tifa's shoulder, crying her eyes out.   
  
And he'd turned away, because it was better that way. For both of them.  
  
But there was no one here now, to comfort her, and he felt strangely guilty, as though he'd caused this normally carefree spirit to take on the weight of the world.  
  
He set down the half finished revolver and eased around the fire, sitting quietly down next to her, and she continued crying, oblivious.  
  
He watched her for a moment, a pained expression on his face, caught, again, hesitating in indecision, half of him telling him to comfort her, the other half telling him to get up, leave her alone, run away, keep her safe.  
  
Finally, he reached out his hand, and put it gently on her shoulder.  
  
She started, then looked up, surprised. Tears dripped slowly down her cheeks, her eyes wide and disbelieving.  
  
He blinked, looked confused for a moment, blinked again, then asked, in an almost questioning manner...  
  
"It's... alright?"  
  
"Oh Vinnie! I'm so sorry!" She sobbed.  
  
Then put her arms around his waist and sobbed into his shoulder, staining his shirt with her tears. He stood rock still, wooden, his hand still awkwardly on her shoulder, glancing around confusedly like a trapped thing.  
  
He said nothing else.  
  
But he didn't move.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------- 


	7. Commence Operation Ditch Vinnie

"Run away, run away from here. Run away, run away from here. Run away from all you know, run away from fear. Run away from failure, run away from tears. Run away from home, from the wife and kids. From the cats and the doggies, run away to forgive. Running into the light. Run away. Hide away, in the lion's den. Play with matches, ya get burned. Flyin' high, in an aeroplane. In a fast car, on the highway. Run away, run away, run away. Run entranced, by the sunset. No looking back, and no regrets. I'll think of you, if I run again." -Oingo Boingo, Run Away (Escape Song)  
  
She loved the jungle.  
  
She would never tell anyone. No one would ask, at least, no one to whom she cared to confide in. There was one man who met that distinction, and such an observation would have meant nothing to him, though he would have understood it. He understood alot of things about her, it was why they worked together so well.  
  
She loved it for its sounds. Sounds were everything to her, her life, and her domain. Every individual sound was a brushstroke in the fragile painting in her mind, every nuance her cherished possession. She had come to rely on them as she relied on air, on food, on water for nourishment.  
  
The jungle was alive with music. Indeed, alive, for that music was the music of life itself. Of death and birth, and the neverending struggle to perpetuate.  
  
Reiko Nakamura did not remember much about her childhood before the war which had ravaged her home country of Wutai. She remembered not so much her parents as she did an abstract, warm presence, sensed but not seen, felt but not understood. What she remembered most about her parents was her father. More accurately, his weapon. It dominated his life, and he'd pushed it on her almost before she could walk. He had been determined that she would follow in his footsteps, and her disability had been an obstacle to be surmounted, nothing more.  
  
He had been an amazing man, she remembered that much. He had taught her to see without sight, relying on all of her senses equally, a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. In this manner, she exceeded her father's expectations, for the body betrays itself in a thousand minute ways that mere eyesight cannot possibly hope to pick up.  
  
Her tribute to her father was her sword, and though he would not have approved of the cause for which she shed blood, he would have understood her reasons. Her father had been a contradiction, a reserved and quiet front that hid a wellspring of deep and fiery passions... the soul of a poet.  
  
Or perhaps an artist. The sword was his paintbrush, his every movement the palette.  
  
The battlefield, his canvas.  
  
He would have understood the unreserved devotion that sprang from her for the wolf-like killer who had graced her side these past 20 years. Devotion born of a debt he'd never acknowledged had needed paying, devotion which, during the onset of her adolescence, had grown into a childish infatuation that had amused him in its clumsy sincerity, though in all things Jaeger had remained the perfect gentleman, much to her dismay. Infatuation maturing into something deeper that he had chosen not to recognize, perhaps blinded by the image undimmed in his mind's eye of a little girl with a grim, determined face, too big sword almost, but not quite, dragging on the ground, struggling in her small strides to keep up to his brutal pace. He'd told her he would leave her behind if she couldn't keep up, and he'd meant it... he was a wolf, and a wolf has no place in its heart for weakness. She'd never given him a reason to equate that state of being with her, and so at his side she remained.  
  
Her love for him was unrequited, but nonetheless real.  
  
Unrequited perhaps, but Reiko was content. No one else understood Jaeger quite as she did, and certainly there would never be another woman in his life. If she could not have him, she was content in the knowledge that she was closer to him than any other human being.  
  
Still living at least.  
  
"What do you think, schattenblum?" His voice broke into her reverie with sharp suddenness, though she gave no sign of being startled.  
  
He was like that, sometimes, especially during the hunt... a bundle of nervous energy that lashed out at sudden, unpredictable intervals. She could hear a tension in his voice she associated with eagerness, and something else... an excitement that she'd never felt from him before. Words and intonations were all she had to paint the picture of a person's mind for her, and she was very good at sensing the unseen emotions voiced behind the lines. She'd been accused of being a mind reader before, and she'd never disabused the accusers of such an observation; praise or suspicion meant nothing to her.  
  
Jaeger had always simply shook his head in amusement.  
  
She'd never been able to pry out of him the origin of the strange words he sometimes used, the harsh, throaty accent he never bothered to rid himself of. She got the impression that the word he used for her was a source of amusement to him, but it was the closest he'd ever come to an endearment for her, and so she tolerated it, no... truthfully, she cherished it.  
  
Still, he expected an answer, and she wasn't one to keep him waiting.  
  
"I think, Jaeger-sama, that we are on the right trail." She paused, lifting her face for a moment, then cocking her head in concentration.  
  
"Violence has been done near here... I smell death. Old death." She paused. "Fire... it has been drowned out by rain."  
  
"Not an unexpected occurance in a rain forest, eh?"  
  
"Your sarcasm is uncalled for, Jaegar-sama... it was a recent fire, perhaps within a week or two."  
  
He was quiet for a moment, she sensed he was staring deeper into the forest with intense concentration. She knew him better than most, and right now she imagined he was weighing the odds that the couple they sought were lying in ambush for them. Still, the need to know if their information had been correct was a high priority right now, and Jaeger was never very good at waiting once he smelled blood.  
  
There was also the possibility that the violence done here had nothing to do with their quarry. He frowned. "We check it out..." He mused, rolling the thought in his head for a moment beforeshaking his head clear of lingering doubt. "Ja. Schicksal, eh? Perhaps this merry chase ends soon."  
  
"He's good then, Jaeger-sama?" His answer to the Lady Choshu nonwithstanding, Reiko knew this Vincent Valentine character meant something to the gunman, though Jaeger was frustratingly miserly with details about his past, even with her. "The past is past, eh?" Was the answer he gave most often. Still, she'd noted the hint of delighted eagerness when the Lady had mentioned their target. She'd never heard it BEFORE a hunt's conclusion, and it aroused her curiousity.  
  
"Ah. Very... very, good, mein Schattenblum. The best. Maybe better than me. Therein lies the excitement, ja? To finally know if I am better than the one and only Vincent Valentine."  
  
"Better than der Schwarzer Tod..."  
  
He smiled grimly. "He scares me, Reiko. It has been a long time since anyone has done that. Maybe never, eh? I like it."  
  
She cocked her head slightly. "What if he's better than you, Jaeger-sama?"  
  
He grinned. "Than I die before I get any more long in the tooth, ja? Always a bright side, if you look hard enough."  
  
She said nothing in reply, simply following the hidden signs that would lead them to their quarry, but she was thinking about such an eventuality. Was it possible? She had never considered the possiblity that anyone could outpace her companion in his chosen profession, in most cases there was simply no comparison. She knew he was beginning to question if he was still as sharp as he'd always been... Jaeger was not a young man anymore, nor had he been for a long time. Not that this detail mattered to her, of course. Love knows no boundries, save the acknowledgement of two halves for one another, making them whole.  
  
They moved carefully through the jungle, her leading and him following. Jaeger was good, but he wasn't as attuned to his senses as she was. Eventually she stopped, frowning. She detected a scent that she normally only associated with Jaeger, the burnt earth scent of cordite, the smokeless gunpowder which propelled his bullets. She bent down and carefully felt around with her right hand until they closed on a cold, hard object about the size of her pinky finger. She picked it up and turned to show it to Jaeger.  
  
He took it from her and examined it carefully, making considering noises deep in his throat.  
  
".60 caliber long round... a scraped ring around the end... this was fired from a revolver?!" He smelled it, looking up. "Ah... not lead. Rubber. This was a riot shell." He sneered. "Going soft are we, Vincent?"  
  
"I do not think so, Jaeger-sama." Reiko interrupted quietly, having moved ahead about fifteen yards or so.  
  
He looked up, then followed the sound of her voice. His eyes widened when he caught sight of the grisly display before him.  
  
"Mein gott..." he whispered.  
  
Reiko assumed an expression of extreme distaste. There was much death in this clearing, as evidenced by the buzzsaw roar of a thousand flies and other insects busy recycling the detritus of their targets struggle for survival. The sick, gassy scent of putrescence made her slightly queasy.  
  
Another scent caught her attention, the sweet, syrupy sap scent of a damaged tree. She angled her face upward, towards the scent, then rapped her knuckle bracer on the tree in question, listening intently. She sensed Jaeger was walking around the corpses of the great beasts she'd smelled, and his knowledge of such things would give them a better idea of what had happened her. As for herself, there was something up in this tree that interested her... damage where there should have been none. She bent her knees slightly, then arced upward, hands searching for the limb her ears and nose told her had to be there. Finding it, she swung herself upward to change her momentum, then allowed herself to collapse into a crouch on top of it. She crab-walked closer to the source of the sap scent, and ran her fingers down the foot long gash in the woody flesh of the tree.  
  
Jaeger examined the remains of the great lizards and their unfortunate riders, though the jungle had not been kind to them. Despite the bulk of the corpses, huge gaps between ribs and living coats of irridescent insect flesh would soon reduce this scene of carnage to unrecognizable ruin.  
  
Such was the nature of... well, nature.  
  
Still, the trained eye could pick out any number of interesting details, and Jaeger's eye was better trained than most. For instance, the great corpse lying on its back on top of its unfortunate (and now very flat) riders had been killed by a weapon Jaeger had never seen before, but what ever it was, it has struck with great force, literally blowing a huge gap out the back of the beast's heavily armored skull. Whatever had made this hole had left no powder burns, and no fragments in the wound.  
  
That ruled out his target. Disappointed and somewhat puzzled, he turned to the other corpse.  
  
This one was... much more interesting. His first impression of the beast was that it had been running at great speed, possibly charging, then tripped and snapped its own fool neck in its own haste. Closer examination painted a much more detailed picture.  
  
The beast's body was twisted at an impossible angel in such a way that while its head and upper quarters where oriented as though it had fallen on its belly, its hindquarters were twisted slightly to the left and bunched up. A rider lie slumped forward on its neck, his features indistinquishable for two reasons.  
  
One, the angle of his slump obscured any identification of the body.  
  
Two, he didn't have much of a head left.  
  
Indeed, the straps of a helm of some sort hung loosely in the corpse's lap, along with the better part of his frontal lobe and a small portion of his upper jaw. The lower jaw, along with a days worth of stubble, and the victim's lolling, bloated tongue, hung grotesquely low on the victim's face, and it was as though a great hand had scooped everything higher than that and tossed it away carelessly. Jaeger grabbed the man's shoulder and pushed him back, examining the beast's neck just beneath the corpse.  
  
"HA! There!" Jaeger chortled.  
  
An inch diameter, perfectly rounded hole sat in the beast's neck. Jaeger pulled out his boot knife and dug into the huge lizard's spinal column, finally removing a gory, slightly deformed, silvery bit of metal that felt strangely heavy in his gloved hand.  
  
He turned it over in his hands easily, glancing backward and up, towards a tree some hundred or so yards distant.  
  
"It's him, Reiko. Only he could have pulled off a shot like this." He raised the deformed, mythril jacketed AP round with thumb forefinger. "Rifle round. Long rifle. One shot. Got the rider and the creature in one fell swoop. Ausgezeichnet!"  
  
She jumped down and canted her head towards him from where he stood on the beasts back.  
  
"There was another here. A master of the shuriken. Perhaps the girl the Lady Choshu referred to?"  
  
Jaeger scowled. "I do not recall any information about her being a martial artist. That uppity Weibchen neglected to mention that particular detail, ja?"  
  
Reiko sighed. "It does indeed change things. Perhaps that is why she neglected to mention this little detail."  
  
Jaeger shook his head, his grin returning. "We shall have a little talk with Lady Choshu when next we see her, eh? In the meantime, we are close. Very, very close, I think."  
  
Reiko nodded quietly, somewhat disturbed by the evidence she'd found. The shuriken was a weapon of choice for the Da Chao master, which meant the person they sought was Wutain nobility. She hoped Jaeger was not underestimating their quarry.  
  
Regardless, she would defend him to the death.  
  
Beyond, if need be.

* * *

Yuffie was sick to death of this goddamn jungle. She was sick to death of rain, of this oppressive heat, but most of all, most assuredly of all, she was sick of Vincent motherfucking Valentine.  
  
Yuffie was not well known for her stability of moods, and though her sudden, unexpected insight into the Vincent condition had softened her heart somewhat towards the enigmatic gunman, after her cathartic release of sadness and frustration on the quietly disturbed Ex-turk's shoulder, Vincent had clammed up to the point where she wasn't even sure if the man was still breathing, let alone making any attempts towards companionship. Yuffie didn't mind being alone, but she couldn't stand being ignored, and this cold, no, sub-zero treatment seemed like torture.  
  
Not in the least because she was pretty sure it was her fault.  
  
Her internal clock was pretty good, her being a ninja and all, and she figured it had been about three weeks since their unexpected tumble into the ass crack of the world. It had taken the better part of two and a half weeks to extricate themselves from the maze of jungle overgrown stone walls, and once they had, they found themselves deep in the heart of the Gongaga jungle, several hundred miles from the nearest town. Vincent had made it apparent that he intended to backtrack towards Gongaga, presumably to procure transport around the southern penninsula of the continent to Wutai, and Yuffie, heartily sick of slogging through the jungle, agreed.  
  
At least, with the returning to civilization (or what passed for it in these parts) part of the deal. The gears in the Yuffster's head were turning, and she had a plan she was pretty sure would get good ol' Vinnie off her back, at least for a little while. It was sure to work too, because it used his own solitary and creepy nature against him. She had no doubt it would only slow him down, but it might give her some time to put some distance between her and any form of transport headed towards Wutai, and when Vinnie happened to catch up to her again, well... ANYTHING might happen, if she was allowed to get a little distance from him to cool down for a while.  
  
She giggled inwardly at this thought, mentally rubbing her hands together in glee.  
  
Unbenownst to her, Vincent eyed her warily. The speed with which she'd agreed to head back to Gongaga worried him, he knew she had no intention of returning to Wutai. Everything else about her might confuse him, but he understood that. To be perfectly honest, Vincent had no idea what was going on through that cute little head of hers, and the unpredictability of his erstwhile charge set his nerves on edge.  
  
Chaos certainly wasn't helping. He was beginning to wonder which of them was worse... because neither of them would shut up. Yuffie inadvertantly tag teaming the damnable creature with disturbing regularity. Vincent had taken to remaining sullenly silent in an attempt to wash out the noise between his ears.  
  
It wasn't working very well.  
  
"I spy, with my little eye, something that begins with the letter S." Yuffie sang behind him, her hands laced behind her head as she walked, apparently without a care in the world.  
  
Vincent restrained the morbid impulse to glare at her in frustration, but only just barely.  
  
"No guesses, Vinnie?" She sang at him after a short pause.  
  
He sighed.  
  
"Nope, that's wrong, Vinnie. That's 526 to 0, zip, zilch, and nada."  
  
She shook her head. "You aren't very good at this are you, Vinnie?"  
  
-I wasn't aware I agreed to play- Vincent thought irritably.  
  
"Ok, here's another one, Vinnie. I spy, with my little eye, something that begins with the letter T."  
  
"Town." Vincent muttered.  
  
"Nope, that's not it." She blinked at him, momentarily thrown off of her game. She was, after all, just doing this to annoy him. He was ignoring her, and thus had started it, of course.  
  
"No, I meant there's the town. Gongaga." He pointed.  
  
"Oh thank you GOD!" She screamed, rushing past him.  
  
-Amen to that, sister.- Vinnie, er, Vincent thought. Of course, he'd never voice such a statement to the world.  
  
It wouldn't have been very Vincenty of him.

* * *

Gongaga had never been a very big city, but the events of Meteor had started to change that. After the shutdown of all the Mako reactors, any town within easy reach of the sea immediately became hot property, as ships were about the only thing capable of traveling long distances with anything approaching comfort of regularity. Add to this the inevitable influx of refugees from various traumatized corners of the world, and you have a city that was just beginning to get a little too big for its britches.  
  
This showed in the haphazard way new streets formed and reformed seemingly overnight, a morass of temporary and semi-permenant housing and businesses springing up like a mass of toadstools around the base of a particularly unpleasant looking tree. Crime was, of course, at a new time high, bringing with it the inevitable bounty hunter population, and with so many hotheaded assholes with far too much firepower and lack of sense, it was not uncommon for blood to run in the streets.  
  
Of course, scavengers, both human and otherwise, were quick to capitalize on any ill-gotten windfalls that might grace their path, and so the streets were at least kept clear of refuse.  
  
This being said, neither Vincent nor his smaller companion stuck out too badly, as this was pretty much the ass end of the world. Even in their decidedly the worse for wear state, they both had an air of competence about them that forstalled most confrontations, and any hardheaded bravo who whistled at Yuffie's ragtag state of dress (or nearly undress, if you take into account what her normal attire looked like) was soon discouraged by the death glare from the young Ninja in question, not to mention the impossibly huge revolver that graced her steely eyed companion.  
  
Coming to a slightly less ramshackle than most building with the ubiquitous title, "The Greasy Monkey", Vincent eyed it dubiously. It would be nice to stay in a real, honest to god building for once, but the comfort potential of a public house named after a hygiene deficient primate gave him serious pause.  
  
The matter was decided once and for all when Yuffie barged past him and entered the building, dragging him along behind her like a recalcitrant child.  
  
"Vincent, it won't kill us to stop here for a day to rest. My whole body, not to mention smell, is killing me."  
  
Vincent shook free of her gently and followed, his eyes adjusting slowly to the dim, smoky interior of the inn. The inside wasn't too bad, in fact, compared to the outside it was downright immaculate. Several hard eyed patrons sat at various tables, drinking their poison of choice and discouraging any prying into their business with shifty glares and unpleasant, hard expressions. One corner held six or seven individuals in some sort of uniform, the uniforms in question in various states of undress.  
  
Vincent figured them for the local police and relaxed slightly. If this was the watering hole of the local authorities than there wouldn't be too much of a criminal presence. He looked down at Yuffie and caught her staring at them as well, before her gaze became disinterested and turned to the stairs leading up to the rooms.  
  
Vincent didn't know it, but phase one of "ditch Vinnie" had begun.  
  
Vincent stepped up to the bar and Yuffie followed, behaving for once. Vincent cleared his throat and the large man behind the counter put down his glass and eyed Vincent blandly before acknowledging him.  
  
"What can I do for ya, stranger?" He eyed Yuffie for a moment, catching a strange vibe from the young girl. He wondered what such a sweet young thing was doing attached to such a grim, creepy looking character like the dark man in front of him.  
  
Of course, it was none of his business.  
  
"I'm looking for for passage to Wutai. A ship, as soon as possible."  
  
The man shrugged, grunted noncomittally, then scratched his chin. "Hell, boats come up through here all the time. Matter a' fact, we had a ship come in from Wutai not too long ago. Might still be in port, come ta think of it. Why the hell would ya wanna go to THAT place anyway?"  
  
Vincent shrugged. "Business." Something in the man's tone made him pause. "What's wrong with Wutai?"  
  
"Eh, don't rightly know, stranger. Rumor has it that there's some sorta trouble out there, an' there have been a helluva lot of refugees comin' in from Wutai. We don't normally get immigrants from that place... they all tend ta head to Costa Del Sol or Midgar, if they're feelin' particularly adventurous." The man paused for a moment, picking at a particularly stubborn fleck of dried matter on the glass he held.  
  
"So many's been leavin' that place that Costa Del Sol had ta close thier ports, an' Midgar is considerably farther down the line than here, so I imagine things must be pretty bad for all those people to come all this way."  
  
Vincent eyed his charge but she hadn't been paying much attention. She turned back from her study of the surroundings to look up at Vincent.  
  
"Vinnie, does this place have a bath?" She asked hopefully, her eyes flicking to the innkeeper then back to Vincent.  
  
The innkeeper frowned and spoke up. "Yeah... but yer gonna have ta run the water yerself. This ain't no full service station."  
  
Vincent sighed and nodded to her. "Don't go anywhere, and try not to attract any attention." He said sternly.  
  
She beamed at him and gave him an innocent look. The sort of look that said, "who, me?".  
  
Vincent wasn't buying it.  
  
The innkeeper slid her a brass key across the counter and she grabbed it and dashed up the stairs, narrowly avoiding knocking an old man down the steps in her haste.  
  
Vincent turned back to the innkeeper, his face revealing nothing.  
  
The innkeeper raised an eyebrow. "What's-"  
  
Vincent gave him an intimidating look. "None of your business."  
  
The innkeeper raised his hands, looking sideways. "Hey, no sweat, partner. Get you somethin'?"  
  
Vincent calmly ordered a tea and seated himself, Death Penalty within easy reach. He was right, his business with Yuffie was none of the innkeepers concern. Unfortunately, fate, and a certain crafty ninja girl, was conspiring against the gunman. Unbenownst to the man in question, Yuffie had been making several interesting faces at the partly inebriated troupe of gaurds not five feet from the bar. Without saying anything, Yuffie had managed to arouse their suspicions (as well as several other things, she was after all, a very attractive young woman) and they'd been listening to the dark gunman's conversation.  
  
They hadn't much liked his attitude, or his tone. The scared, please-help-me looks the young woman had been giving them certainly hadn't helped.  
  
Phase two of operation "ditch Vinnie" had begun. Life was about to get... very interesting for a certain Ex-turk.  
  
Interesting like a solid kick to the nuts.

* * *

A/N: My apologies for the long wait. Doom 3 and Morrowind have eaten my brain, and it has taken me quite some time to even get this little bitty chapter out. That being said, this chapter is mainly just a build up for the roller coaster of events that are going to take place in the next chapter. I had considered simply waiting and releasing a huge update that would encompass both chapters, but that would have taken me lord knows how long to finish, and I figured you diehard Why Me? Fanatics might not survive the wait, and so, here you go. Hopefully Chapter 8 will follow before too long, but considering what I want to do in it, it might be anywhere from a week to three weeks. Gomen Nasai, folks.  
  
That being said, I enjoyed writing this chapter, because it allowed me to give a bit more insight into the lives of our two villains. I'm of the school of fantasy writing who believes that there is no more important element to a story than a good, convincing villain or three, and so expect to see more developement of those two as time goes by.  
  
My apologies to those whom this royally annoys, but it's my story so Nyah nyah and all that.  
  
Later all, and thanks for reading. As always, reviews are appreciated.  
  
Chris, DT 


	8. On The Edge

A/N: Christ, this chapter took for-goddamn-ever to finish. Aside from the obvious... it's the longest chapter to date, there is also the matter of mundane life intruding into my writing time. I'm in the Navy folks, and right now my command is preparing for a big AMI inspection. Basically, its like finals for you college folks, only this is my job. I'm deeply involved in all manner of navy programs that are inspected during this phase, since I'm a workcenter and divisional Training Petty Officer, so I really have to sweat this.  
  
What does this gibberish mean? It means that right now I'm usually working until late at night, and then sleeping when I get home. So less time for writing.  
  
Still, here's the next chapter to Why Me? The epic that expanded beyond my control. Since this chapter was written in several sittings rather than just one or two like my other chapters, the narrative may change tones alot. I tried to avoid this, but whatareyagonnado, huh?  
  
Hopefully it's enjoyable. It was hell getting this finished with so much on my mind. It's still pretty rough, but I swear I just can't stare at this any longer... I NEED to post this. So if it seems unfinished, I deeply apologize.  
  
In any case, on with the show!  
  
"It's twilight and I wake up hot. My body's soaked in a cold, cold sweat. I reenact the lurid scenes, and clawed engravings in my head. Oh, I can't punch hard enough. I can't kick high enough. I can't shoot straight enough. I can't hold on enough. I can't stay down enough. I can't take pain enough. I can't bleed fast enough. I can't die dead enough." -Megadeth, Die Dead Enough  
  
Yuffie sat back in the modest tub the Greasy Monkey had managed to produce and soaked in the hot water. To the untrained eye she appeared to be the picture of relaxation, but in all actuality, she was listening very closely for any sounds just outside the small chamber set aside for bathing, a very short distance from the Inn's bathroom.  
  
This was exactly where she needed to be to put the final touches on Operation: Ditch Vinnie.  
  
It may not have seemed as such. In fact, most people, upon hearing what Yuffie's chosen profession was, after having met her, found it very difficult to reconcile her image with said profession.  
  
This was, of course, the point.  
  
When asked what the word ninja meant to them, most idle speculators would, invariably, give the description of a shadowy, quiet, patiently creeping guy in a black outfit with a penchant for two toed socks and a tendancy towards deviousness and stealth.  
  
Yuffie, of course, appeared as a colorful, loud, easily distracted, in-your-face young girl in an outfit that could, if one were being kind, best be described as slightly noisy, complete with sneakers.  
  
The deviousness and stealth are about all one can attribute to her... at first glance.  
  
Yuffie was a master ninja however, and in order to understand just HOW masterful, one must first understand the true nature of the ninja. A ninja is, no more and no less, a practicioner of ninjitsu (go figure, since the literal translation of ninjitsu is, art of the ninja). Ninjitsu is a term used to describe not only the collected hodge-podge of fighting arts that is more commonly known as Da Chao, (literally from Chao, after the province which originated the art) but also to describe the philosophy in which said arts are applied.  
  
Anyone who has ever practiced martial arts knows that the philosophy is the groundwork from which a fighting style is built, and that it applies not only to the art itself, but also to how the practicioner approaches life.  
  
Still not clear? We're getting there, just keep reading.  
  
There are five principles behind ninjitsu, and these five principles, if followed properly, result in the total domination of ones foes in combat, or life.  
  
The first principle is known as Establishing the Circle of Death. Since at its most basic level this is applied during a combat situation, this is how it will be described. A person's circle of death is how far from themselves they can affect an opponent without a large amount of movement. An untrained, unarmed opponent can only threaten an area as far as he or she can kick or punch, whereas a trained martial artist or someone with a weapon (or a trained martial artist WITH a weapon) can threaten an area considerably beyond themselves. Da Chao originated on a battlefield, in which there are many opponents each using different weapons and at different skill levels, so on and so forth. The battlefield is a fluid place, and in order to remain effective, the Da Chao master determines, through establishing death circles, who or what is the biggest threat, and therefor must be dealt with first. Even without actively appearing to, Yuffie is using this particular tenet in her plan against Vincent, just by having a plan at all.  
  
Obviously the root of her antagonism with him is Godo and Wutai, but as the first principle dictates, due to his proximity he is the bigger threat, and thus must be dealt with accordingly.  
  
The second principle is known as Defending the Area Not Attacked. This is a difficult principle to understand, and many laymen never progress beyond the level of novice because of this fact. When an opponent who is not trained in Da Chao attacks, they inveritably tend to focus on a very small area, such as the point which they are currently punching or kicking at. When attacked, such a person defends the area on themselves which is being attacked, which leads to a linear sort of approach towards combat. This works just fine as a rote reaction to an expected attack from a single opponent, but what happens to said martial artist if they are fighting an unorthodox opponent, or multiple ones, or just something simple, like fighting in a narrow alleyway or in the dark? Obviously linear thinking causes rigidity of thought and reaction, which then leads to rigidity of the body in the form of rigor mortis. A Da Chao ninja never defends, they feel out their opponents reactions and then attack from an unexpected angle. While their opponent is busy focusing on that small area, the ninja lets him have it and attacks from every other angle.  
  
A ninja never retreats, they attack in an unexpected manner. How does this work? Have you ever tried beating the crap out of someone who isn't there? Or chased after them to beat them up and then got ambushed when you weren't expecting it?  
  
Vincent was very focused on preventing Yuffie from escaping, or wheedling her way out of her duties. He certainly wasn't going to expect her to attack him from an unexpected position. Namely his own solitary nature.  
  
The third principle is Capture the Mind. This sounds simple, but it can be very complex. When faced with the unexpected, such as unexpected pain, or a sudden noise, or the introduction of a distraction, an opponent can't help but focus on the unexpected situation at least a little bit. At the instant of receiving a sharp blow, an opponents eyes dilate, or blink entirely. This is a reflex, and unavoidable. At that instant, they are most vulnerable to attack. Of course it doesn't just have to be physical pain... an opponent who shouts in one's face, or begins to laugh uncontrollably for no reason, or who simple ISN'T THERE, also captures the mind.  
  
Phase 1 of Operation: Ditch Vinnie would apply this particular principle in the form of distraction.  
  
Lots of them.  
  
Once the mind is captured, the ninja need only apply the fourth principle, Unbalance the Circle. Physically, it is almost impossible to attack when one is in the state of falling on one's ass. Once a ninja unbalances an opponent, they simply continue to unbalance them, and their foe is at their mercy.  
  
This leads to the last principle, Capture, Persuade, Maim or Kill. Which of course, is what you do to a helpless foe. Yuffie had no wish to maim or kill Vincent, she wasn't THAT annoyed with his uncommunicative ass. She'd tried to persuade him, he wasn't listening to reason.  
  
So that left Capture.  
  
As you can see, Yuffie was so much of a Da Chao master that she applied these principles without much conscious thought, which is, of course, the whole point of being a martial artist. If one has to think about what one is doing during the split second reactions needed for a life or death fight, one is about to get one's ass handed to them.  
  
Gift-wrapped. With a little red bow.  
  
As stated before, if all of these principles are applied, the ninja cannot fail to succeed. It is when all of the variables have not been worked out that the attack fails.  
  
Or, you know, if the ninja herself is starting to have second thoughts.  
  
Yuffie was annoyed at Vincent, and, truth be told, a little hurt that after their "breakthrough" he'd become a stone wall again. Of course, if she analyzed the situation a bit more deeply, she'd realize that it probably hadn't seemed like a breakthrough to Vincent, who was unaware that she'd spied upon him while he was bathing, and that this was simply business as usual for him. Yuffie has, due to years of it from her father, an annoying tendancy when hurt to see active persecution where there is really just ignorance, and reacts accordingly.  
  
Still, some part of her realized that this deception, a tactic that was alien to Vincent himself, had a good chance of lessening her in his eyes. However, this only bolstered her reserve to see it through... Yuffie was a complicated young woman, and while there was that part of her that had misgivings about doing anything that might make disillusion Vincent towards her, there was also that fiercely independant part that said that if something like this REALLY made him like her any less, then he wasn't the man she was... you know.  
  
Fortunately for Yuffie's already overtaxed emotional state, most of these thought processes were taking place subconsciously.  
  
Of course at this point, you, dear reader, are probably wondering what this terribly sneaky plan was, and why Yuffie had taken the time to take a bath right in the middle of it.  
  
Well, aside from the obvious answer involving personal hygiene, it did actually serve her purposes. For instance, the baths are very close to the toilets.  
  
What does this have to do with anything? The police officers drinking it up downstairs were almost certain to need to relieve themselves, (anyone who has drunk several pitchers of beer knows this is a cold hard fact of life) and when they did, they would be away from where Vincent's keen senses could detect her manipul... er, convincing them of the rightness of her cause.  
  
Namely, getting the hell away from Vincent and his mission to her bring back in her father's clutches.  
  
Her keen ears detected the stumbling up the stairs of one particularly inebriated individual. She waited the appropriate amount of time, then...  
  
Show time.  
  
For those of you with weak stomachs for large amounts of sappy melodramatic overacting, I suggest you turn away for a little bit, lest you find yourselves in search of a bucket.  
  
A large one.  
  
Though in her defense, it's kinda hard to convince someone of any particularly abstract situation when the target audience is piss drunk.  
  
It started with the sobbing. Yuffie was a master at sobbing, it made for good bait. She could lend it that woebegone, "there is not a hope in the world for this poor sufferer", air that immediately engendered the need, in the male sex, to comfort and protect the poor maid.  
  
Please.  
  
Of course, our poor target in question, an upstanding sod by the name of Sergeant Marley Jenkins, never knew what hit him. One minute he was making room in his excrusiatingly full bladder for more alcohol, the next, he was blinking in dismay at the sound of some girl crying her eyes out in the next room.  
  
"Wuzzat?" He announced blearily, this being the extent of his diplomatic repetoir at this point.  
  
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, this was exactly what Yuffie was waiting for.  
  
"W-who's there?" She said, mock fearfully.  
  
"Uh, me." Marley confided smartly.  
  
"Who's "me"?" Yuffie said, exasperation just bearly detectable in her voice. To the observant.  
  
Which Marley was not.  
  
"Er... Marley?" The guard Sergeant asked, half questioningly.  
  
"Marley? Please sir, leave this place quickly... if HE catches you talking to me, I fear what he might do..."  
  
This was a bit too much information in one sentence for Marley to handle at this point. He blinked. "Who?"  
  
Yuffie sighed inaudibly. "The tall, dark man in the red cloak who I came in with... he's a mercenary... a particularly nasty one too."  
  
Marley straightened a bit. "What're you doin' with a mercenary?" He was beginning to remember a standoffish individual with a particularly evasive and unpleasant manner downstairs. He vaguely remembered he'd had a girl with him... a girl who'd looked desperately at them for a split second before the tall stranger had turned her way. Marley's very slowed thought processes began to revv up to full throttle. Hey... maybe she was in some kinda trouble... maybe... she didn't wanna be with that guy!  
  
"I wouldn't be around him if I had a choice, good sir guard. I am an upstanding citizen ill used to such a disreputable character (man, she's laying it on a little thick...) but I have little choice in the matter... he said he'd hurt me... terribly if I didn't do what he said."  
  
Marley reddened. This was terrible. Still, something about this didn't make sense. "But why is he tryin' to-"  
  
Yuffie wasn't about to let him start THINKING. He might do something intelligent. Like smell the bullshit. "It's a sad tale, and I hate to burden you with it..."  
  
Marley bought it. Secretly, he was a reader of dime novels, particularly romance ones, though he'd swear on his mother's grave he never read more than the graffiti on the bathroom stalls. "Naw, what's going on?"  
  
"Have you ever heard of Wutai?"  
  
Marley snorted. "Sure, who hasn't? Bloody tourist trap. A'course there's an awful lotta those little guys runnin' around here of late... some kinda trouble back there-"  
  
Yuffie didn't want him to get sidetracked. Of course, this was information she might have wanted to hear, but then, she was on a roll, and wasn't particularly listening to him.  
  
More's the pity.  
  
"Good, then you know how backwards and hopelessly old fashioned it is. I recently fled that Kingdom. My evil father wants me to carry on in the family tradition, he even has a husband picked out for me, so I cut my ties with him to pursue my own life. My father wouldn't accept this, and hired the mercenary to capture me and take me back to Wutai. Please! You have to help me!"  
  
It's amazing how a simple twisting of an actual situation can paint such a drastically different picture of the actual events taking place, isn't it? Of course, good bullshit has a tendancy to do that.  
  
Marley frowned. "Well... that ain't right."  
  
Yuffie sounded unconsolable. "No it's not, but what can I do?"  
  
Marley sounded thoughtful. "An' you say he's kidnapped you?"  
  
"He is holding me against my will..."  
  
Marley had an epiphany. "Well, that's against the law!"  
  
Yuffie rolled her eyes. Duh, she thought. Then she sighed for effect. "What can I do? Will no one stand up to this m-"  
  
She started say monster, then remembered a recent memory of Vincent's accusatory glance upward at her when he thought she was applying that word to him. She hadn't been, but she couldn't quite bring herself to call him that, even behind his back. Even if she was just laying it on thick for a mark.  
  
"Madman?"  
  
That's better. Sort of. Well he WAS a sociopath. Kinda.  
  
Marley stood up suddenly, full of righteous anger, almost tripped over his pants which were still around his ankles, (hey, it's hard to think of things like that when you're getting indignant over a girl's sorry situation) stopped, pulled up his pants and frowned, his face hard.  
  
"Don't you worry none, miss. Me an' ma boys'll sort this out."  
  
Yuffie toweled her hair dry and grinned triumphantly. "Oh would you? I can't stand up to him, but a strong brave guard like you... maybe..."  
  
Marley stood up straighter and puffed his chest out, which was ridiculous because Yuffie couldn't even see him. Of course, no one ever accused the guard of being overly perceptive.  
  
Not even when he was sober.  
  
"We'll have that bastard locked up tighter'n a drum, mark my words, miss."  
  
"Be careful... he's a dangerous criminal."  
  
At least, he's about to be, she thought.  
  
The Sergeant went charging downstairs as Yuffie dressed and congratulating herself on a job well done, considered her next move.  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
As previously stated, Vincent felt comfortable in an inn's social setting. He liked to listen to the human drama going on about him without actually being a part of it, sort of living vicariously through the rest of the room.  
  
Since he was so observant, and because he had a natural understanding of an inn's social structure, he knew almost instantly that something was wrong.  
  
Of course, the man barreling down the stairs was something of a dead giveaway.  
  
Vincent didn't move from his seated position, but he did pay attention to what was happening by virtue of his peripheral vision, as well as the dingy mirror that hung behind the bar. What he saw made his lip tighten imperceptively.  
  
The man had stopped barreling down the stairs and assumed a studiously, overexaggerated (though the overexaggeration was probably because he was obviously drunk) calm demeanor, all the while glaring in Vincent's direction. He stopped at the table that held his companions and whispered fiercely to them.  
  
Several of them looked at Vincent and scowled. The others studiously avoided looking at him at all.  
  
Several other details immediately came to Vincent's attention, details that he'd missed before, or dismissed as unimportant.  
  
The mirror wasn't a mirror, it was stainless steel polished to a mirror shine. In some places, it was dented, and had been hammered back into shape ALMOST perfectly. The beer and liquor that was out on the bartop or on the shelf under the mirror was all cheap, easily replaceable stuff. The more expensive stuff was locked up behind a metal grate just under the shelf that held the cheap stuff. The tables were all bolted down, the chairs uniformly cheap, and obviously had been repaired numerous times.  
  
Also, the bathroom and bathing room were both upstairs.  
  
Vincent sighed and shook his head.  
  
He got up and started to go to the stairs, his usual quiet, "handle things in house" self, presumably to head off whatever trick Yuffie was trying pull...  
  
And walked RIGHT into her trap.  
  
The men in uniform stood up as one and blocked off the stairway...  
  
Just as Yuffie started down, looking, without her armor and weapon, decidedly waifish and miserable.  
  
Vincent blinked.  
  
"Hold on there, partner." The man with the mustache who had come back down the stairs said reasonably. He looked a bit unsteady. "Me an' my boys wanna share a drink wit' ya."  
  
Vincent regarded the man cooly. "I don't drink... wine." He didn't know why it came out like that, he just felt compelled to respond that way.  
  
The man responded in kind, looking at his men in confusion. "We ain't drinkin' that pussy shit neither. I was talkin' 'bout a beer."  
  
Vincent sighed. "I definately don't drink that."  
  
He flicked a glance at Yuffie, who was currently (barely) repressing a smirk of victory.  
  
"I don't know what she told you-" He started.  
  
"You know, 'round here, we got a word for what yer doin'." The man interrupted.  
  
"-I am doing this for the girl's own safety-"  
  
"We call it kidnappin'." The guard finished, glaring at him.  
  
Vincent blinked. He looked at Yuffie, then the guard. "She's not being restrained in any way."  
  
The man grinned. It was not pleasant. "Oh I gather she ain't bein' held right now. There's more'n one way to hold someone 'gainst their will, though."  
  
"She's not being held against her will." He looked at Yuffie. It was a hard look. She at least had the grace to avoid his gaze.  
  
Of course, this was misinterpreted.  
  
"Then I guess you won't mind if she leaves, will ya?"  
  
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "She can't do that. It isn't safe."  
  
"Who'd hurt her?" The man said reasonably. Then he said something in a tone that wasn't so reasonable. "You?"  
  
Vincent compressed his mouth into a thin line. He had no intention of hurting her, ever. He said nothing.  
  
"I think y'all need ta come with me, sir." The way he said sir was intoned with such venom that Vincent narrowed his eyes even further. He was starting to get angry.  
  
"This is none of your concern. I am a registered bounty hunter and I have been tasked with bringing in a target by a legitimate authority. You have no jurisdiction here."  
  
The man grinned unpleasantly and cracked his knuckles. "I beg ta differ, sir. Ya see, we're a poor lil' township here out inna middle of the jungle, an' we're simple folk. Them big city rules an' regulations, they just take such a LONG time ta get to us, what with computers an' the like all goin' the way o' Shinra. So maybe you ARE a "registered bounty hunter" an' maybe you ain't, how am I gonna verify anythin'? An' if you AIN'T legit, well then I jus' let a nefarious criminal with a poor lil' gal slip right through ma fingers. So what I'm gonna do is give you a nice place ta stay while we try an' verify whether what you say is true. Shouldn't be more'n a few weeks. Tops."  
  
Vincent went still. Dead still. "What about the girl?"  
  
The man took a slight step back, no... not a step back, he widened out his stance a bit, like he was expecting to take a blow. The other men fell in with him, eyeing Vincent eagerly.  
  
"Well, did she commit a crime?"  
  
Vincent frowned. "I'm not at liberty to discuss it."  
  
Nor was he. Godo had implied that Wutai didn't need this kind of publicity. Not to mention the fact that it would be dangerous for Yuffie if such information became known.  
  
"Well I can't lock her up fer nothin' now, can I?" The man said, easily.  
  
Vincent's expression didn't change. "If you lock me up, she'll be gone before you can turn around."  
  
The guard's eyes twinkled. "Kinda gives you the impression she don't wanna be around you, don't it?"  
  
Yuffie was finding it difficult to keep a straight face. Good ol' Vinnie was so predictable.  
  
Of course, he then chose to do something that completely flew in the face of that. Though in his defense, he was pushed to do so.  
  
The guard started forward, reaching out one burly hand to take Vincent's shoulder...  
  
Before anyone could blink, the guard was staring cross-eyed down the barrel of the largest damn revolver any of them had ever seen. He gulped.  
  
"Don't." Vincent said, in one sharp consonant.  
  
The other guards started to move forward. They stopped when Vincent cocked the hammer back on the single-action revolver.  
  
"I said... don't." Vincent said calmly, his eyes like twin cold pools of blood. "I don't know what is going on here, but I am not going to allow you to put her in danger, however noble your intentions are."  
  
Yuffie was confused. What the hell is he going on about? She thought. This had taken a decided turn for the worse. Vincent wasn't supposed to put up a fight like this, he'd never been this confrontational before, at least, not unless somebodies' life was on the line. Now it looked like this was going to turn into a bloodbath, and that was most certainly NOT what she wanted to happen. Particularly if it happened to be Vinnie's blood.  
  
It might be a good idea to defuse the situation before-  
  
Two very important sounding clicks drew everyone's attention.  
  
The bartender, who had dropped behind the bar at the first sign of trouble, currently had a very large looking sawed-off double-barreled shotgun pointed at Vincent's back.  
  
"I think you'd better do what Officer Marley says, stranger. I don't want no trouble." The bartender sounded scared, but very, very serious.  
  
Dead serious.  
  
Vincent weighed the situation.  
  
He was perfectly capable of dealing with all of these men. Certainly, when he was a Turk, he would have killed any man who pointed a weapon at him on general principle, immediately followed by anyone who obstructed his mission. He would have had no reservations about doing so.  
  
Vincent's eyes snapped to Yuffie. She had paled considerably, and her look of triumph had changed to one of tension and fear.  
  
What is she afraid of? Vincent thought to himself.  
  
-You.- The demon chortled.  
  
He frowned.  
  
The bartender was getting antsy. His finger tightened on the trigger ever so slightly. "You hear me, son? I'll blow you away, don't think I won't."  
  
"Now now... there's no need for this... we can... end this situation peacefully, don't nobody panic." Marley sounded very calm for a man with a .60 caliber revolver pointed at his forehead. He was literally drenched in sweat, however... the pleasant warmth of the day's drinking quickly dried up in the tension of the moment.  
  
Once again, Vincent found his eyes drawn to Yuffie. She was staring at him, frozen in the process of calling out to him, afraid that any sudden noise would set the bartender off.  
  
Of course, he only SAW her deer in the headlight's expression, staring at him.  
  
In the end, she left him no choice at all. Somehow the thought of killing six innocent men, especially in front of her, made the bile rise in Vincent's throat.  
  
He closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, then holstered his revolver in one smooth motion and very delibrately raised both of his hands.  
  
Everyone let out a breath of relief.  
  
Yuffie most of all.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
It disturbed her to watch him be manhandled like that.  
  
Oh he wasn't being mistreated. She wouldn't have stood by and watched that happen, especially since it would have been her fault. Still, Vincent was a remarkably solitary person, he didn't touch anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, nor did he seem to like being touched. Watching him be pushed and shoved along with his hands cuffed behind him was decidedly surreal. She walked behind him and the ring of guards who followed him, glad she couldn't see his face.  
  
She was almost certain she'd be ashamed at the recrimination there.  
  
It wasn't supposed to be like this, she thought to herself.  
  
It was all supposed to be no big deal, just like when I tattooed ol' Sung's butt. Vincent is rubbing off on me, she thought miserably.  
  
She was starting to lose her sense of humor.  
  
No, perhaps it was just that planning and actually going through with this felt like... like a betrayal.  
  
She walked with the group in a daze, and it was a pretty good indication of the town's civic pride that no one even raised an eyebrow. Marley, only recently over the shock of having that huge revolver pointed at him, said something to the effect of, "I won't feel safe 'til that scary fucker is behind bars," and so with a quickness that made Yuffie's head spin, she found herself staring at Vincent sequestered within the confines of a secure, if modestly appointed, jail cell. As the cuffs came off and the door slammed shut he turned quietly and looked at her, his expression unreadable.  
  
Then he sat down just as quietly, not even causing the poorly made, rack-like bed to squeak on its obviously rusty springs, his forearms resting against his knees, hands down between his thighs. He continued to look at her.  
  
"Come on, Vinnie you had to know something was up. I told you I wasn't going to Wutai."  
  
Vincent said nothing. His expression didn't change.  
  
"What, did you think I was just going to let you drag me back to Godo without putting up a fight?" She scowled at him. "I'm not a child." Even to herself, it sounded bitchy and... whiny.  
  
Again, silence.  
  
"I'd say you were giving me the silent treatment, but this is normal for you, Vinnie." She said, covering up her discomfort with a flippant attitude. "Besides, you aren't going to be in here forever. They'll probably release you in a couple of weeks or so, so-"  
  
"I'd leave if I were you, Yuffie." He said suddenly, turning his gaze away from her. "I don't... like you very much at this moment."  
  
She gulped on the sudden pain this statement brought to her. It hit her like a kick in the gut. She also felt just a small twinge of fear. Vincent was pissed, and her probably had every right to be so. No, he was worse than pissed, he was fucking angry.  
  
Vincent was scary when he was angry.  
  
It was only a little bit of fear, though. Even though she'd never seen him this angry and still in control of himself, the fact that he WAS still in control of himself spoke volumes to her. Besides, his anger was very quickly subsiding... or maybe... no, maybe it wasn't really anger at all. When she thought about it, mostly it sounded like tired, resigned disappointment, and THAT was what hurt. People had been angry at her before, and they'd been disappointed in her before, but never Vincent, not really. The most she'd ever gotten from him was annoyance or mild disapproval. Never outright censure.  
  
Well, as outright as he ever was with anything so private as an opinion.  
  
She hid it behind bravado. "You're just pissed 'cause I got the drop on you Vinnie, it'll pass."  
  
He continued to look away from her. "I suppose you did surprise me. It's my fault. I trusted you." Then he looked at her, his expression hard.  
  
That hurt worse than the previous statement, but it also confused her. "Look, I'm..."  
  
Vincent continued to watch her. "I suggest you use this time to get a head start, Yuffie. I won't make the same mistake again."  
  
She froze for a second, then lifted her head angrily. "I'm not going back to Wutai, Vincent." She hissed. "Get it through your skull. Don't make me out to be the bad guy in this, just 'cause I did what I needed to do to get away from you. You didn't leave me any choices!"  
  
His expression went blank then, and she knew the conversation, from his side at least, was over.  
  
Damn him anyway, she thought. This was supposed to be her opportunity to gloat at him for getting the best of him, but as usual, Vincent managed to make her feel something completely opposite what she had intended to feel.  
  
Suddenly she needed to be away from him. Needed it like air.  
  
So she left.  
  
-Why stop there, Vincent? You were getting good and angry! You're right, too, so it can be RIGHTEOUS anger! That's your favorite kind, isn't it?-  
  
Vincent said nothing.  
  
-Of course, it doesn't matter at all that she's just trying to keep away from others trying to run her life... after all, you're keeping her SAFE aren't you?-  
  
-Don't try to twist this, Chaos. She's in danger. I was justified. I shouldn't have hesitated.-  
  
-Then why didn't you do it?-  
  
Vincent sighed. -I didn't... want her to see me like that.-  
  
-But if you were justified in doing it, wouldn't you have been able to convince her of that after the fact?-  
  
-It isn't that simple, Chaos, and you know it. Stop-  
  
-Twisting this? My dear killer, I'm not the one twisting things here. You're just falling back on your old habits, like I told you you would. All you need to start killing is the right justification, no matter how weak it might be.-  
  
-But I didn't kill anyone!-  
  
-True. But tell me something, would you have, if she wasn't there?-  
  
Vincent, alone in his cell, if not his own mind, looked at the ceiling and sighed.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Yuffie found herself running in a random direction from the jail, and had to force herself to start walking like a normal person. It wasn't like he was going to come busting through those doors and after her in a dark cloud of sullen, silent determination, pistol in hand, but she had to literally force herself not to look back to see if he was doing just that.  
  
Vinnie kinda had that effect on you.  
  
Of course, Vincent had quite a few other effects on her, she thought, and wasn't that exactly why this was such a bitch and a half to do?  
  
She had to face the facts. Vincent was fast becoming a fixture in her thoughts, if not her life. Maybe it was the close proximity to him over those long weeks they spent traversing the jungle crevasse, maybe he'd always been a point of interest and she just hadn't thought about it deeply enough, whatever the case may be, Vincent was no longer just that creepy stranger she sometimes traveled with.  
  
No, now he was the creepy stranger she sometimes traveled with who annoyed the shit outta her, and who was fast becoming something of an obsession.  
  
Cripes, I'm friggin' HOPELESS! She thought to herself.  
  
Why did he get under her skin so easily? It wasn't like he'd betrayed any real interest in her... and when you compared him to her first crush, Cloud, there couldn't have been a greater disimilarity between them than if you compared her to Sephiroth. Cloud was all light and easy good nature, whereas Vinnie was... well... Vinnie.  
  
That's when it hit her like a bolt out of the blue. An epiphany. It stopped her dead in her tracks.  
  
All this time she'd been annoyed at him without really knowing why... she'd said she wanted people to stop treating her like a child...  
  
...and he HAD.  
  
He listened to her, and acknowledged her viewpoint without derision. He talked to her in a manner that expected her to react in kind.  
  
She'd just gotten angry at and ditched ol' Vinnie for doing exactly what she'd been saying all along she WANTED from everybody.  
  
She felt like a total heel. She started to turn around, then hesitated, and finally walked to the inn, gathered her armor and equipment slowly, as though looking for an excuse to stop, then wandered aimlessly around Gongaga town for a while. Pride was an important thing to the young ninja, and though she could admit her mistake to herself, admitting it to Vincent was another thing entirely.  
  
Not that the fucker would rub it in her face... which would only make her feel even worse about it.  
  
"Why'd you have to be such a good loser, Vinnie?" She muttered to herself.  
  
Let it not be said that Yuffie was completely oblivious. Granted she was certainly distracted, and this might account for how she managed to walk into the middle of where she was without noticing, but she wasn't SO distracted that the... curiousness of her surroundings didn't eventually catch her attention, and so, without immediately realizing why, she looked up, a sense of strange familiarity reaching her.  
  
She had wandered into a ramshackle, dirty part of town obviously quite new, considering its temporary nature. It was a neighborhood of tents and clapboard buildings, squalid and muddy to the extreme, but there was a homeliness to it, a certain familiar air about it, that immediately caught Yuffie's attention.  
  
She looked around her, caught sight of an elderly woman in a kimono sweeping the front of her rundown hovel with diligant, brisk authority, and the kids running about in little more than loin clothes, and she suddenly realized...  
  
It was like she stepped into one of the poorer villages of her home country of Wutai.  
  
Confused, she approached the elderly lady and bowed before launching into her native tongue.  
  
"Honored elder, what is the nature of this place, why are you all settled so far from home?"  
  
The older woman stopped sweeping and eyed her confusedly, looking her up and down. Yuffie spent alot of her time absent from Wutai, and so the woman didn't recognize the heir to her countries' throne, but she did see she was talking to a confused Wutain native, if... outlandishly dressed. She grumbled a bit, then shrugged.  
  
"Where have you been, that you don't know of our troubles, child?" She said gruffly.  
  
Yuffie blinked. "Forgive me, I have been... abroad. What is going on here?"  
  
"War." The matron spat out, looking away. "The honored Lord Kisaragi lies in his deathbed. The lady Kisaragi cannot be found, and so the Lady Choshu has seated one of her clan's brats on the Throne as Regent. Until the lady Kisaragi can be found, they say." She snorted. "The other clans have risen up against her... and now all of Wutai suffers."  
  
Yuffie stared at her, dumbfounded. There were so many impossiblities in what she'd just heard that she couldn't possibly keep up with it.  
  
The matron must have seen Yuffie's reaction, though she misinterpreted it, not knowing who Yuffie really was. "Not to fear young Miss, the Clans will fight for a time, then decide who is to rule, and life will continue as usual. It will be strange, not to be ruled by a Kisaragi after so long, but it will be no different."  
  
"No..." Yuffie muttered, turning away. Godo, dying? Choshu, regent, war... refugees... it... it wasn't possible!  
  
What the hell was going on?  
  
Her thoughts racing, she sped through the alleyways and streets quickly, finally taking to the rooftops in order to speed her journey through the congested streets. She found it highly unlikely that her father would just hand over the throne, no matter how sick he got, unless he was completely incapacitated. In that case, sensing weakness, the Choshu might have made some sort of power play, and the other clans had resisted it. The Choshu were powerful though, almost as powerful as Kisaragi, and they had made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to place one of their own on the throne.  
  
Suddenly Vincent's comments made sense. He WAS protecting her... because Choshu... hell, the other clans as well, had undoubtedly sent agents after her.  
  
Suddenly, she realized, one of them HAD caught up with her. Sung had confronted her in the arena at the Gold Saucer... at the time she thought he'd been just a bit overzealous in his attempts to defeat her, but now...  
  
He had SAID he was trying to bring her back to Wutai, but...  
  
But she'd gotten the feeling that he'd been honestly trying to hurt her. She'd attributed it to a less skilled martial artist's attempt to compensate, but maybe...  
  
Holy shit...  
  
Then something else hit her, belatedly. Something that made all other considerations completely unimportant.  
  
She was being followed.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Vincent waited for the sun to dip a bit lower in his lone barred window. Contrary to what Yuffie might have thought, Vincent had no intention of waiting until his jailors decided to let him go. Of course, that necessitated him releasing himself, since no one else was going to do it, and he didn't particularly feel like ripping his way out of the sturdy jail.  
  
As previously noted, such an overstated reaction to relatively simple problem simply wasn't Vincent's style.  
  
Vincent listened intently, attuning his senses with the ambient noise in the small jail. The cell he was in was suitable for locking up the occasional drunk or two, the city having grown alot faster than it's police force could compensate for. A small passage way leading to another cell, and a heavy metal door was all the room contained. No guards were back here at the moment, though Vincent thought he could detect one's presence just outside the jail room containing the two cells. Bending down, he removed the bit of metal that capped his boot and from it removed a sliver of metal with notches on it. Setting this on the bunk next to him, he then grasped the golden digit that had replaced his pinky finger, twisted it completely around, then removed it entirely.  
  
Picking the two pieces up, he moved to the cell door and got to work.  
  
Anyone who has ever picked or tried to pick a lock, knows that it isn't as easy as alot of movies make it look. It takes fine manipulation and a sensative touch, which unfortunately, Vincent lacked in his golden prosthesis. However, he was a gunslinger, and his human hand was more than equal to the task.  
  
Of course, it is a testiment to his skill that he managed to even attempt it, with his arm awkwardly bent around into position, manipulating the lockpicks ONE-HANDED.  
  
Coincidentally, Vincent is also an ace with a pair of chopsticks.  
  
Of course, patience is also required of a lockpicker, and Vincent had that in spads. So it was only a matter of time (around 16 minutes or so) before the lock unlocked with a satisfying clicking noise, and Vincent swung the door open easily.  
  
He closed the door behind him as he stepped into the small passage way.  
  
Reattaching the finger, he flexed it to ensure its proper operation, then continued with his plan of escape.  
  
He eyed the metal door, then walked up to it and, in a serious and unassuming manner, knocked soundly on it.  
  
The guard had been nodding off, so hearing a knock from a room supposedly empty of free roaming individuals damn near made him soil himself. He slipped off the wooden chair he'd been kicked up in groggily, then stepped up to the door and opened the sliding metal portal that allowed the guard on duty to look into the room without opening the door.  
  
The room inside was dark (Vincent had put out the candles in the room).  
  
The guard cursed and cautiously opened the door, revolver in hand.  
  
A golden clawed hand clamped down on the revolver, fingers around the cylinder, and thumb against the hammer. It then yanked the guard inside with brutal force.  
  
The door quietly shut.  
  
All was peaceful.  
  
-----------------------------------------------  
  
"I ain't tellin' you nothin'." The guard stammered, vincent's booted foot holding his bulk down over his own arms, preventing his escape.  
  
"You ain't gettin' outta here, merc." The guard growled. Still, a hint of fear betrayed his tension to Vincent.  
  
Vincent stared at him long and hard, then cracked open the cylinder and popped out the shells, one by one, letting each one tinkle to the ground right next to the guard's head.  
  
All but one.  
  
He leaned down and looked the guard in the eyes. "My weapons. Where are they?" He said softly.  
  
The guard looked away, his lips tightened into a grimace.  
  
Vincent sighed and positioned the bullet as the last one to fire in the cylinder order, leaving all of the other chambers empty.  
  
With a flick of one long finger he spun the cylinder, then in one smooth motion, flicked his wrist and extended his arm, closing the breech and stopping the cylinders rotation, then pointing the revolver at the guard's rapidly paling face.  
  
Then he pulled the trigger.  
  
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.  
  
The guard had started crying after the third click. He opened his eyes and looked at Vincent like he was crazy.  
  
Vincent looked back like he just didn't care.  
  
"Where are my weapons?"  
  
The guard gulped. "I-"  
  
Vincent sighed, cracked the cylinder again, then spun it with the same motion. He snapped it back into position and pointed the gun-  
  
"Fuck! Shit! Inthegoddamnweaponslockercombo14352justdon'tdothatagainyoucrazyfuck!"  
  
Vincent shrugged, then tapped the revolver soundly against the man's head and put it into one of his own pockets. He then drug the now unconscious and snoring guard into his former cell and locked it with the guards keys.  
  
No one even saw him leave the building.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------  
  
Yuffie was in trouble.  
  
If it had been your average, bunch of yokels indignant over missing property she could have dealt with them. Bandits, or mercenaries, even your average bounty hunter, she could have dealt with those too.  
  
The man who was following her was good. Damn good. In fact, if it weren't for his constant, dogged persistance behind her, she'd have thought his presence was merely a coincidence.  
  
He was tall and thin, and had a washed out, grizzled look, from his dusty, metalshod boots and large, concealing grey greatcoat to his thin, predatory, lined face topped with pulled back grey hair. He looked old and rawboned, but he wore it with an air of deadly competance and scary maturity. This was further heightened by the ease with which he moved through the crowds, always right there, just at the edge of her perception, but not hurrying like she was, the bastard was taking his time. Even when she took to the rooftops to speed her travel, she'd think she'd lost him, only to spot him a street corner away, slipping through the crowd with a disturbingly familiar gait.  
  
A gait she'd seen somewhere else.  
  
Worse still, he KNEW that she knew that he was following her. Every once in a while he would grin at her, hard and predatory like an animal. She couldn't shake the feeling that he was stalking her, hunting her, like prey.  
  
Further, he was, slowly but surely, cutting off her options, pushing her, herding her away from the town's center, towards the less populated areas.  
  
Alright you son of a bitch. She thought. You want me out of town, that's what you'll get.  
  
There were some tricks in her book that she just couldn't use on a crowded street, not without running the risk of hurting someone, and certainly not without calling attention to herself. His goal suited her own purposes as well.  
  
Of course, a nagging voice told her she should head back and find Vincent, but she quashed it.  
  
She could handle this.  
  
She'd always handled it before.  
  
The town gave way to clear cut plains where jungle had once stood, this being the only way of keeping the various creatures of the jungle at bay. She found herself heading west, with the ocean to her left and the jungle to her right, quickly eating up the distance along the beach. She'd been through this way before, and up ahead, the ground got rocky, with scads of places to hide and strike from.  
  
The perfect place for an ambush.  
  
Soon she was heading at an upward slope, and the land became rocky and broken up, and the beach receded on her left, replaced by rocky cliffs dropped off to cave pocked, jagged rocky bases. She scrabbled up into the rocks and waited, watching her trail for her pursuit.  
  
She didn't have long to wait.  
  
He came up her path, his eyes flicking, assessing the ground before him. Then he stopped and put his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, grinning in her direction.  
  
"There is no need for this, frauline. I wish only to... talk with you, ja?"  
  
She blinked. Frauline? Ja? Where was this guy from? She'd been all over the place, but she'd never heard his outlandish sort of speech before. He eased around her position, and she eased along the rock, watching him.  
  
"You are quite skilled at this schattenspiel, girl. This sneaking around. It makes you quite a nuisance."  
  
He stopped, his back to her.  
  
"However..."  
  
Her instincts screamed at her. "Shit!" She shouted, leaping upwards...  
  
He spun around, two sleek, deadly looking handguns in his hands. The rock where she had been a moment before exploded as she arced up, twisting in mid air to throw Conformer.  
  
The deadly bit of silvered metal spun towards him and he darted back, quicker than her eye could follow. Conformer passed through the point he had been standing moments before and arced back to her, as she ended her flip behind an outcropping.  
  
"Schiest. You are not going to make this easy, are you frauline?" Despite his words, he sounded as though he were enjoying himself.  
  
"What happened to talking?" She shouted, irritated. She eased towards the edge of the outcropping.  
  
Silence.  
  
She peeked around the edge. A scrape just above her made her instinctively dive aside, as puffs of dirt and shards of battered stone followed her flight from the bullets striking her path. He was on TOP of the outcropping she'd been skirting.  
  
"We ARE talking, Frauline, are we not? I get bored easily, this passes the time!" He grinned, using her panicked dive behind another group of rocks to reload his pistols in four quick, practiced movements.  
  
"Works for me, psycho!" She answered, winging Conformer at him. It start spinning vertically and ended its flight spinning horizontally, in a move that had buzzsawed the head off of many a confused foe before. The gunman simply skipped back quickly, watching the shuriken spin just behind him as he traveled just ahead of it.  
  
What the hell is that asshole doing? She thought confusedly.  
  
She got her answer, though it was NOT the answer she ever would have expected.  
  
He stuck his right pistol up carefully, somehow passing the barrel into the hole in the center of HER Conformer, and CAUGHT the damn thing. Then he spun and used the centrifugal force to WING it back at her.  
  
"You gotta be shittin' me!" She shouted, ducking her own weapon for the first time in history before watching it sail out into distance, over the cliff, dropping out of sight.  
  
She followed it to the edge disbelievingly, watching as it clattered among the rocks at the base of the cliff.  
  
The double click behind her made her turn around. Slowly.  
  
He grinned at her, both pistols looming in her vision, the barrels looking impossibly huge and black from fifteen feet away.  
  
"That was... entertaining. Now, I suggest you stay put, frauline. You and I both know you are outmatched."  
  
"T-that's... that's not possible." She said, still in shock.  
  
"There is always someone out there who is better than you. Though I will admit that I had an unfair advantage."  
  
She waited for him to elaborate, but when he did not, she frowned.  
  
"You are the Kisaragi girl, ja?"  
  
She frowned. "And if I'm not?"  
  
His grin widened. "Then I shoot you, now. I dislike frustration."  
  
"I'm her." She muttered.  
  
He frowned. "I had heard Vincent Valentine was traveling with you. Where is he?"  
  
What did this guy want with Vincent? She was beginning to get confused. If this guy was tracking her, why was he looking for Vinnie? She had a bit of a brainstorm. Maybe he was tracking her because he thought she could lead him TO Vinnie.  
  
"Oh I ditched him a while ago."  
  
His grin disappeared, and he looked coldly infuriated. She gulped.  
  
"That is... unfortunate."  
  
"What the hell is going on here?!" She blurted out, completely confused.  
  
He sighed. "You are nobility, ja? Surely you are not so dense as to misunderstand your position?" He clucked his tongue. "I had heard you were a clever girl. Assassination is a time honored tradition, ja?"  
  
She narrowed her eyes. "What does that have to do with Vincent?"  
  
He shrugged. "I suppose nothing, now. I was looking forward to facing him. I'll just have to console myself with the large sum of money I'll receive for bringing in your head."  
  
Another click caught her attention and she glanced towards it, while for his part, the gunman simply froze, frowning deeply.  
  
She drew a deep breath, eyes wide. "V-Vinnie! How the hell did you-"  
  
Vincent Valentine stood, Death Penalty raised to his shoulder, sighted in on the other gunman, stock still, having apparently teleported to the scene. In actuality, the small homing device he'd planted on Yuffie during their travels together (he had trusted her, but not THAT much) had led him to her amazingly quickly. The three stood in a silent triangle, with the gunman pointing both his weapons at Yuffie, Yuffie looking confusedly at Vincent, and Vincent aiming at the gunman.  
  
"Not now, Yuffie." He said quietly.  
  
"What do you mean, not now! Gods, I HATE it when you-"  
  
"Vincent! How good to see you! You are looking... well. Not so well, as well. Tell me, did it hurt?" The gunman was grinning at him, still frozen in place.  
  
Vincent's face went momentarily blank, and then recognition flickered in his eyes. "Jaeger... what are you doing still alive?"  
  
Jaeger grinned. "You DO remember me. I am very flattered, Schwartzer Tod. Very flattered indeed."  
  
Vincent's eyes went cold. "I told you never to call me that."  
  
"You KNOW this guy, Vinnie?" Yuffie interjected, quite pissed off at having been ignored.  
  
"Not now, Yuffie."  
  
She gave him a look that could have killed him at fifteen paces. Fortunately he was sixteen paces away.  
  
Jaeger grinned. "Not to point out the obvious, Vincent, but we are at a bit of a stand-off, ja?"  
  
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "Not from where I'm standing. I shoot you, we leave. End of stand-off."  
  
"I don't know, Vincent. I am pretty fast. Can you shoot me before I shoot her?"  
  
Vincent narrowed his eyes further. "You shoot her, and you're a dead man."  
  
"Hey! Nobody's shooting anybody, least of all me!" Yuffie shouted.  
  
"Shut up, Yuffie." Vincent muttered.  
  
"YOU SHUT UP, YOU DICK!"  
  
Jaeger chuckled. "I think I can understand why you are carrying riot shells, eh, Vincent?"  
  
Vincent had the decency to look somewhat embarassed, at least. Barely.  
  
Yuffie reddened. "Hey, fuck you!"  
  
Jaeger snorted. "Well, this is all very amusing, ja? I am not a patient man, however, and I think I've had enough Dummheit for one evening."  
  
Vincent's finger tightened on the trigger. "Don't even think about-"  
  
"Vinnie!" Yuffie's urgent shout interrupted him. She suddenly realized what Jaeger had meant when he mentioned an unfair advantage.  
  
"Not now, Yuffie." Vincent hissed, trying to diffuse the situation from descending into bloodshed.  
  
"VINNIE, GODDAMN IT BEHIND YOU!" She shouted... just a split second too late.  
  
"Timely as always, Schattenblum!" Jaeger shouted gleefully.  
  
A small, fast moving form had darted up on Vincent from behind, sword flashing with preternatural speed. Vincent had no time to orient on the target and fire, especially not with a rifle.  
  
A normal man would have been immediately bisected.  
  
Vincent, obviously NOT a normal man, spun so fast the air hissed, desperately throwing his golden prosthesis in front of the blade.  
  
Sparks shot from the clash of metals, and Vincent was forced back a step, his golden arm dented from the impact. The figure confronting him followed up with a hissing slash that he only barely avoided losing his right leg below the knee to.  
  
Jaeger grinned and oriented his right pistol at Vincent, looking in Vincent's direction.  
  
Time slowed down to a snails pace as everything started to happen at once...  
  
Jaeger's finger tightened on the trigger, his target the small of Vincent's back...  
  
Yuffie eased a fighting knife free of her armored bracer and flung it desperately at Jaeger's outstretched arm, the bit of steel somehow, amazingly, cutting into the slide of the weapon, causing it to misfire...  
  
Jaeger cursed in that strange language of his, dropped his ruined pistol and turned his attention back to Yuffie...  
  
Vincent spun at the sound of the cursing, leaping towards Yuffie in great, galloping strides, rifle firing one handed back at the figure chasing him, causing it to dodge and weave...  
  
Jaeger's finger tightened on the trigger, the gun bucked in his grasp...  
  
Yuffie started to close her eyes...  
  
Just as Vincent slammed into her from the side, having shouldered into her at the last minute.  
  
Yuffie OOOFED loudly as the air rushed from her lungs, then screamed as she toppled over the edge of the cliff. She fell about fifteen feet, then somehow amazingly managed to catch an outcropping before she fell any further.  
  
Panic took hold of her as her white fingered grip began to slip, the sharp rock cutting cruelly into her grasp. She glanced upward, searching for Vincent...  
  
He swayed dangerously at the top of the cliff, then jerked once... twice... three times... blood foutaining behind him in great gouts.  
  
He toppled bonelessly after her, following her into the night.  
  
"VINCENT!!!" SHe shrieked, and then her grip failed, and she found herself freefalling screaming his name.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------  
  
Vincent was feeling strangely numb. He'd never been shot quite so many times before, and he'd always thought it would hurt. Amazingly, he felt no pain at all. Time became meaningless... it felt like he was floating instead of rushing to his death on the rocks below.  
  
-That's because you're dying, you jackass.- Chaos snarled at him.  
  
-You... too... Chaos.-  
  
-What could you have possibly been THINKING!?-  
  
-Girl...-  
  
-Well you just killed her as well as yourself, so even NOW you're a failure!-  
  
-No... your... fault..-  
  
-What?-  
  
-You... can... save... her...-  
  
-Why would I do that, pray tell?-  
  
Vincent was losing his grip on consciousness.  
  
-Hypocrite. We both die, you prove yourself... the bigger monster. I... win.-  
  
Chaos was silent for a long moment. Then it snarled in his head.  
  
Vincent descended into darkness.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
A sudden sound like the snapping of two leathery sheets in the wind caught her attention and she stopped in mid shriek. A sudden, looming shape with two coal red eyes burned at her.  
  
She gasped. Two clawed hands caught her painfully and clasped her to a ravaged and black chest.  
  
And she knew fear.  
  
For she was in the embrace of Chaos.  
  
-------------------------------------------------- 


	9. Bloody Assignations

A/N: And here we go again. Once more into the breach, my friends, but for the grace of fandom go I. Of course, also because I don't want anyone bitching at me for keeping you all in cliff-hanger status any more than I probably should. It is very cruel of me, I know, but I DO so love the agonized groans, that I do. In other news, the ever fantabulous Amethyst Angel has once again lost her mind and decided to host the story on her very own site, complete with awesome chapter illustrations and other assorted goodies. Bear with me, since the stupid document manager removes any links you include, so I had to spell out the links. Please all be dears and check it out at www dot amethyst-angel dot com slash whyme dot html. She's put alot of work into it for little or no benefit to herself, other than the fact that she gets a copy of the story mailed to her the instant I finish it.  
  
Well, that and the little surprise I left for her in the story... but then, she's gonna have to read to find that one, heh heh.  
  
Before I forget, if anyone else wants to do fanart or anything like that, by all means mail it to me, since now I have a place to put it where it will be appreciated! So that being said, run along, enjoy, and as always, on with the show!  
  
Oh and don't worry, I'll keep on posting here as well.  
  
One last thing, as much as I'd like to take credit for the cool ninjitsu explanation in the last chapter, I cannot. There is an actual school for the martial arts I described in the San Fernando valley, the art is called Shorinjin Ryu Saito Ninjitsu, and the dojo run by a dear friend of mine, Mr. Stephen McGovern. He and I are old navy buddies, having served together on the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). He's a crusty ol' chief petty officer. Naw, just foolin'. What little I know of martial arts I learned from him, and he's an awesome teacher. If you're interested in a really KICK ASS martial art that makes perfect sense (to me, at least) check out the site at www dot tenkobushi dot com slash Index2 dot html.  
  
Anyway, sorry for all the distractions. NOW, on with the show.  
  
Recent update: Thanks to Lorok for catching the continuity error I made in the chapter. My bad, everybody. I went back and fixed the mistake.  
  
"Off through the new day's mist I run. Off from the new day's mist I have come. We shift, pulsing with the earth. Company we keep, roaming the land while you sleep. Shape shift, nose to the wind. Shape shift, feeling I've been. Move swift, all senses clean. Earth's gift, back to the meaning of life. Bright is the moon high in starlight. Chill is the air cold as steel tonight. We shift, call of the wild. Fear in your eyes, it's later than you realized. Shape shift, nose to the wind. Shape shift, feeling I've been. Move swift, all senses clean. Earth's gift, back to the meaning of... Of wolf, and man." -Metallica, Of Wolf and Man  
  
It was night. The cool air moaned through the craggy rocks that made up the Gongagan coast. A deep, abiding darkness had settled on the land.  
  
It began to rain in small, warm drops, as though the sky itself were weeping.  
  
Pit. Pit-pat.  
  
Reiko oriented her head upwards, her lips thinning. Slowly, she sheathed her sword and walked to Jaeger's side.  
  
She could not see it of course, but years with Jaeger as her sole companion had taught her much about reading his moods.  
  
He was brooding.  
  
Jaeger spun the pistol idly in his gloved right hand, allowing the pistol to complete one full rotation before stopping it, clicked the safety once on, once off, then flipped it again, over and over.  
  
Swish, clack-click. Swish, clack-click.  
  
It was a bad habit of his, one that told her he was thinking about something.  
  
"What is wrong, Jaeger-sama?"  
  
He frowned.  
  
"It should not have been so easy, Schattenblum."  
  
She raised one eyebrow, then, smelling and hearing the blood dripping from it, softly took hold of his injured hand. He stood patiently as she bandaged his bloodied fingers. "You wanted it to be harder than that?"  
  
He grunted in assent, then shook her off when she was done. "He never made mistakes before. It surprised me..."  
  
She frowned. "So... you think he may have had an... ulterior motive for pushing the girl off the cliff, then getting shot?"  
  
He looked sidelong at her. "Ja."  
  
"What makes you so certain?"  
  
He frowned and looked through the gloom, to the sea. For a long time, he was silent.  
  
"He is der Schwarze Tod."  
  
She frowned. "What does it mean?"  
  
He grinned. "The Black Death." He turned and looked at her. "You cannot kill death so easily, ja? Come Reiko. Let us find a way down to the beach."  
  
He turned back to the sea. When his words came, they held a whisper of reverence that made Reiko shiver involuntarily. "Tonight, we find out if even death may die, eh?"  
-  
Yuffie stared wide eyed at the demon. In all of her darkest imaginings, she had never once considered the possibility that something so monsterous could hold her so completely in its power.  
  
She was more afraid then she'd ever been in her life.  
  
In her worst nightmares, sometimes, she watched, broken and bleeding while Sephiroth tore the lives of her friends asunder and laughed, insane and keening as Meteor raped the Planet bloody, bleeding and dead. From these dreams she would awaken, gasping and sweating, and sit, trembling on her roof or a tree, or some similarly tall location until the moon disappeared and the sun once again rose. This affirmation, that life plodded implacably on, despite the best efforts of madmen and dark gods to end it, calmed her fears almost instantly.  
  
Despite that, Chaos was far, far worse. HE awakened a different sort of fear in her. With Sephiroth and Meteor, it was not an immediate fear... Sephiroth was far too grand and majestic an evil to face rationally... the sheer power of the abomination had been such that if one COULD face all of that potential wickedness, one would be driven mad... it was just too encompassing... a being that could tear down the heavens and rent the very earth itself with the screaming remnants? Even when it was happening, it just seemed too surreal.  
  
Like a dream.  
  
The fear was always one of failure, of the burden thrust upon her, upon them. It was a fear she could face, no matter how terrible.  
  
Chaos was different in that it was too immediate... too visceral a fear to rationalize. She'd SEEN his claws tear the life out of screaming, shrieking victims... she'd heard the bone crackle snap of his wings as he descended upon his tormentors... the rasping, dry, dark, bloody laughter of triumph he emitted, made all the more freakish by how human it was, when he ripped Hojo apart.  
  
No matter how much his victims pleaded or begged, or how much terror they felt, it was never enough to slake the demon's thirst.  
  
Only blood seemed to stop him.  
  
Watching Chaos was like watching a tornado or a forest fire in action... a thing of terrible beauty, but best observed at a distance.  
  
Best if it wasn't happening to you.  
  
Well now it was happening to her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.  
  
Still, Chaos was not invulnerable. Whatever injuries Vincent had received, Chaos apparently had as well, as evidenced by the black blood that had coated her chest and run down her legs. It was hot and coppery, and despite the fact that it made her want to vomit, she fought the nausea with frightened determination.  
  
She didn't want to annoy the demon by upchucking on him.  
  
The demon shifted her in its grasp, and she squirmed, afraid of what it was going to do.  
  
"Let me go you-"  
  
"Stooooop. SQUUUUIRMING." It hissed.  
  
She fell limp.  
  
The two unholy lights it used for eyes oriented on her face and narrowed, as though considering.  
  
"I'm not going to HHHUUUURT yoooou. Sssssilly butterflllly."  
  
She blinked.  
  
It dropped heavily onto the sand several hundred yards from the cliff where they'd taken their deadly plunge, its wings fanning out for balance. Apparently the landing was not entirely intentional, or perhaps Chaos was a little too overwhelmed by the pain of its wounds, for it dropped her heavily on her ass in the sand and fell to one knee in front of her, its fanged mouth inches from her face.  
  
It snorted loudly like a bull, letting out one gasping, wheezing cough that sprayed a mist of black blood all over her face.  
  
Despite her fear she scrunched up her nose and winced. "Oh... YUUUCK!" This broke the terror in her like a dam, and she wiped the blood from her face (actually only succeeding in smearing it around).  
  
It grinned evilly at her and shook its head like a cat, then slowly stood, clutching its chest with one clawed hand.  
  
Despite her flaws, Yuffie was not a coward. She knew that if Chaos was here, it was because Vincent had lost control, not that she blamed him, considering the situation. Still, at this point she was more concerned for her companion then she was afraid of Chaos, and that spoke volumes of how highly the gunman had crept into her thoughts. She stood and faced the demon squarely. Despite her current bravado, she WAS scared of Chaos, and this was evidenced by how much she trembled before it.  
  
Still, she stood her ground.  
  
Chaos eyed her wearily. "Thhhhhis sssshell... is broken." It seemed to have problems pronouncing its k's, they came out with a hiss-crack noise like breaking bone.  
  
She involuntarily took a defensive stance at the sound, her eyes never leaving the demon's. "Y-you mean Vincent... right? H-he's hurt real bad..."  
  
It gave her a look that, if it wasn't CHAOS that was giving it to her, she would have sworn was saying "Duh!".  
  
She reserved herself a little better, resolutely frowning at the demon. "Is he going to die?"  
  
Chaos seemed to consider her words... then it grinned, nastily. "It issss very hard to killll ssssomeone who isssss already dead."  
  
She gulped.  
  
It frowned. "But.... we are very clossse to oblivion... thissss will not do... you musssst take ussss to the liffe-carver."  
  
It was her turn to frown. "The what?"  
  
It growled, gritting its teeth. "The LIFFFFE-CARVER! The one who cutssss away death."  
  
She narrowed her eyes. "Do you mean... a surgeon?"  
  
It nodded slowly. "Yessss... that word... tassstesss right."  
  
She gulped. It looked back towards the cliffs and growled, menacingly. "We are being... purssssued. If we are overtaken... we will not ssssurvive."  
  
She grimaced. "There is no way I'm going to be able to hide you looking like that, and there isn't a doctor alive who'd see you. They'd probably never open their doors again, if you showed up."  
  
She crossed her arms. "Give me back Vincent."  
  
It stared down at her. "You have... feeeeelingssss for thissss killer?"  
  
"I am SO not having this conversation with you right now, it's not even funny." She said, resolutely.  
  
Even though a light blush appeared on her cheeks.  
  
It chuckled nastily, then roared soundlessly, collapsing onto its knees and clawing at the sky. Black hair cascaded from its head as its horns receded, its left arm becoming encapsulated in a golden shell. She watched, spellbound, as the demon retreated back inside Vincent's alabaster skin, and then the gunman slumped lifelessly onto the sand, a pool of blood spreading about him with alarming haste.  
  
"Vincent!" She ran to him and lifted him up, laborously turning him over so that his head was against her chest, her arms around him. Blood leaked out of three grievous wounds on his chest. His eyes were closed, his head tilted back, exposing his mouth.  
  
Blood threaded sluggishly from it.  
  
"Oh god Vincent, I'm s-so... sorry."  
  
She wiped away her hot tears, her face resolving into hard stone. There would be time for weeping later, right now it was time for survival. She removed his bloody cloak and tore it into several long stripes. Then she removed her own sweater shirt, her skin chilling quickly in the damp sea air. She wore only her thin undershirt and the bindings over her breasts.  
  
The time for modesty was past as well.  
  
She frowned, realizing that air hissed in and out of one of the chest wounds weakly, causing the blood to bubble disgustingly. She placed one of her remaining throwning knives laterally over the wound, blocking the air from escaping, then padded her sweater over the three wounds in his chest, tying them down securely with the ragged strips of his cloak.  
  
She threw a fearful glance up the cliff, but she could detect no movement in the darkness.  
  
Vincent's breathing was labored and weak, but the bleeding had slowed down, though her sweater shirt was quickly becoming soaked. She didn't think it was possible for so much blood to come out of one person, but she didn't allow herself to think of that. She kept repeating to herself, time for that later, time for that later...  
  
She felt a strange object in an inside cloak pocket of his and pulled it out.  
  
It was a small tin whistle. Recognizing it for what it was, she put it against her forehead and thanked Leviathan Vincent had decided it was important to catch up to her so quickly.  
  
Then she blew on it.  
  
No sound emerged.  
  
She waited.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------  
  
Reiko stopped and oriented her face upwards, holding out a hand out to stop Jaeger's movement. Used to her sudden movements, he simply stopped and watched her quizzically, waiting for her explanation.  
  
He didn't have long to wait.  
  
"Strange... it was like... a whistle." She muttered.  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "I heard nothing."  
  
"Neither did I." She said finally. "I felt it."  
  
Jaeger frowned.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------  
  
She waited, stroking Vincent's brow softly. In unconsciousness, the planes of his face softened into more delicate lines, making him appear almost ethereally beautiful. The pallor of his cheeks and the clamminess of his skin ruined the image however...  
  
She bit her lip. "Why, Vinnie? Why me?"  
  
Vincent Valentine was not inclined to answer, though for once, it wasn't exactly his fault.  
  
A sudden warking sound caught her attention and she glanced up, hope lighting in her eyes once again. A chocobo's soft chocolate eyes blinked at her. There were a pair of them, one tethered to the other, a black and a yellow. Vincent had obviously expected to catch up to her, and hadn't wanted to lose any time.  
  
A plan bloomed in her head, and for the first time since she'd gone over the cliff, she felt like she had a chance at surviving this craziness.  
  
Vincent on the other hand... no. She wasn't going to lose him. Death would have to fight her to the... er, death for him, and that was that.  
  
She looked around panicky for one quick moment, having suddenly remembered something that had eluded her in all the confusion earlier, then sighed in relief when she spotted her favorite tool. Rushing over to Conformer, she picked it up quickly, stowing it before rushing back and grabbing the reins of the chocobos, cursing softly when the blood smell coming from Vincent caused them to shuffle nervously away from him.  
  
She wrapped the reins of the larger, stronger looking black one around her arm, then put both arms under Vincent's armpits and heaved.  
  
He didn't budge.  
  
She gasped from the strain then heaved again.  
  
His head lolled downward, but she was only able to get him to a sitting position.  
  
"Come on you stubborn jerk!" She hissed at him, panic and concern making her snappish. "How the hell can someone so damn... skinny weigh so... damn much!"  
  
"God damn it Vincent, if you die on me, I'll never-  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
"-forgive you."  
  
Vincent stopped, frozen in the act of walking out of the room. He turned slowly, regarding the petite blond scientist with a guarded expression.  
  
"Excuse me?" He said finally.  
  
"I said, if you harm so much as a hair on his head, I'll never forgive you, Vincent Valentine."  
  
He frowned. "You don't... mean that."  
  
She stared back at him.  
  
He was the first one to look away. Despite the practiced, professional mask he always maintained, he could not prevent the slightest amount of hurt from seeping from him.  
  
"He's no good for you, Lucrecia. That little bastard is just using-"  
  
"I know." She said calmly, cutting through his argument like paper.  
  
He raised his head then, staring down at her from behind his black sunglasses, so she wouldn't see the hurt in his gaze.  
  
"I love you, 'Crecia. Why won't you let me protect you?"  
  
"I don't want to be protected from him, Vincent. I love him."  
  
His eyes widened, and he shifted his body as though staggering from a gut punch.  
  
He said nothing.  
  
She put her hand on his arm, gently. "I love both of you, Vincent." She said fiercely. "But... I understand him. I know him, Vincent."  
  
"I'm... not..."  
  
She looked down, unable to continue her sentence.  
  
He shook her arm loose, looking away. She took an involuntary step back, paling.  
  
He didn't see the fear on her face.  
  
He never had.  
  
"Some day he'll hurt you, 'Crecia. I know it. When that happens... I'll kill him."  
  
He stood up straight, betraying none of his pain to her. He couldn't make her understand... couldn't make her see that Hojo was dangerous, that he had some plan, some agenda of his own for her. The man was in love with science, with his own perceived greatness... with that perfect, icy beauty to cherish, why would he woo a flesh and blood woman? No, Hojo was doing what he did best.  
  
Manipulate those who, unlike him, had feelings to manipulate.  
  
"I'll protect you Lucrecia. Even if you hate me."  
  
He walked out.  
  
It was last time he saw her.  
  
When both of them were still alive, any way.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Wake UP!" Yuffie shouted at him, tears coming involuntarily to her eyes. She knew psycho gunboy and his sidekick creepy sword girl were coming, and she only had one chance at this. She had to get him onto that damn chocobo, but he was too damn heavy for her to move.  
  
His eyes snapped open, then rolled wildly, focusing on something past her shoulder.  
  
"No..." he gasped.  
  
She gasped. "Vincent! Thank god!"  
  
He was still staring past her shoulder.  
  
"Vincent, look at me, we have to..."  
  
His eyes locked with her own startled gaze suddenly, fever and madness glaring out of them. He roughly grabbed her shoulders and brought his face close to hers.  
  
"'Crecia!" He whispered. He winced. "Hurts."  
  
"What the!? What are you-"  
  
He blinked, searching her face confusedly.  
  
She blinked back. This was... unexpected, to say the least, and he was holding her so tight it hurt. "Vincent..."  
  
"Scared..." He shook his head. "Why are you scared of me?" He demanded.  
  
"Um... Vinnie, I have no idea where you're going with this..."  
  
She was right. She DIDN'T have a clue.  
  
Because right then, Vincent kissed her.  
  
Hard. So hard it hurt.  
  
Her shocked eyes flew wide, and she froze half way in the act of trying to pull his arms off of hers. Like many teenaged girls, she placed a large amount of stock on the "first kiss". She had imagined a thousand different scenarios ranging from Cloud to Reno (though she'd never admit it, she thought the Turk was kinda cute, in a trashy sorta way. It was a guilty fantasy, like eating too much ice cream. You know its no good for you, but you do it anyway, because it's so sweet.)  
  
She'd expected it to knock her off her feet.  
  
She'd never imagined it would be Vincent. Nor in her wildest flights of fancy did she imagine it to be like this.  
  
It took her breath away and sent hot lightning rocketing through her to her very core. Her lips felt bruised, and her body too cold and too warm at the same time.  
  
It was a good thing she was on her knees at the moment, because she probably would have collapsed if she wasn't.  
  
Then she tasted blood... lots of it, and that snapped her back to her senses.  
  
She did the only thing she could think of.  
  
She slapped him. Actually, it was more like a full on haymaker.  
  
It rocked his head sideways and he let go, blinking confusedly. A red mark appeared on his otherwise pallid cheek.  
  
"Cut it out, Vinnie! I'm not Lucrecia!" She said angrily, just a bit hurt. She didn't want to think too deeply about why the fact that he thought she was Lucrecia when he kissed her hurt.  
  
His eyes started to glaze over and she snapped her fingers in front of him.  
  
"No you're not, Vincent Valentine. If you fucking pass out on me again, I swear to god I'll KILL you... er, again."  
  
She had his attention. Wavering though it was.  
  
Slipping under his human arm, she strained to get him into a standing position and after a confused, drunken moment he assisted her, his exertions oozing blood from his mouth and nose with each breath. He winced with each movement, but other than that did not complain.  
  
Somehow, she got him up onto the chocobo, even though halfway through the action he lost consciousness again. The beast warked uneasily at the bloody burden it was being forced to bear. Yuffie strapped him into the saddle to prevent him from falling off, then led both beasts into the midnight surf. Looking at the yellow bird sadly, she patted its head and crooned to it.  
  
"Sorry big guy, I'm gonna have to hurt you a little, but its a matter of life or death. Don't hate me, ok?"  
  
It cocked its head at her, calming slightly.  
  
She quickly swiped Conformer across the bird's flank, cutting deeply enough to allow the birds blood to run freely from the wound. The silvery bit of metal was so sharp the bird hardly jerked, though it warked unhappily and fought with her for control. She released it and slapped its back in the direction of the forest, watching as it tore up sand in its haste to escape.  
  
She then mounted the black chocobo behind Vincent, kicking its flanks until it grunted under its burden and plodded quickly through the surf in the opposite direction. The blood slowly dripping from Vincent was almost instantly lost in the swirling dark waters.  
  
She only hoped her deception gave them a headstart.  
  
She fingered her lips confusedly for a moment, then shook it off and devoted her full attention to pushing the chocobo in the right direction.  
  
Later... time to dwell on it later.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------  
  
"I smell blood, Jaeger-sama. Lots of it."  
  
"That I expected, Schattenblum, this..."  
  
He looked at the depression in the sand quizzically. It looked as if some great unknown beast had collapsed. The lean gunman and his petite charge shouldn't have been capable of surviving such a long plummet, let alone create a hole of this size, at least, not and still get up and leave it.  
  
Not to mention the fact... that this particular crater was several hundred yards away from where they'd gone over the side.  
  
His eyes pierced through the rain and darkness, aided by the glowstick he'd cracked to provide some illumination. Despite the poor conditions, Jaeger's trained eye did not miss the blood that appeared black in the dim light; more than a man should have been capable of losing and survive, leading away from the scene of the crash. Jaeger followed the trail until it disappeared into the surf.  
  
"Schiest." He muttered.  
  
"Jaeger-sama... I have found something."  
  
Jaeger turned to where his smaller companion had crouched. A series of splay-toed foot prints with large spacing between them disappeared off down the beach towards the jungle. Something glistened wetly on Reiko's fingertips, causing flecks of sand to adhere to her gloves. She wiped them off in the surf.  
  
He grinned. Blood... and Chocobo tracks. That accounted for the strange whistle Reiko said she had heard. THIS was more like it. He'd obviously had some sort of plan in case the fight had gone sour.  
  
"Very clever, Schwarze Tod. Very clever." He looked at Reiko.  
  
She was frowning.  
  
"What is it, Schattenblum?"  
  
She oriented in his direction for a moment, her face distant, before returning to its normal tranquility.  
  
"Something about this does not feel right, Jaeger-sama."  
  
He frowned.  
  
She shook her head. "I... no. We have a trail, our quarry is obviously in headlong flight."  
  
He grinned. "Let us end this, eh?"  
  
She nodded shortly, and the two of them raced after their quarry, in hot pursuit.  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
"I think she'll be fine, Tom. It was a clean break, and she's young. If you keep a good eye on her for a while, I see no reason why she wouldn't grow up as strong and healthy as her dam."  
  
Tom scratched his head and grunted in assent. "I'll hafta make them damn fences higher. Damn fool thing's a jumper, but not good enough to clear it, just enough ta get caught up in it."  
  
The doctor finished wrapping up the baby chocobo's leg expertly and straightened, sighing. It had been a long night, and she needed a cigarette and a chance to sit down. Seemed like everyone in the goddamn city had some sick animal or another to be dealt with. This was SO not her bag.  
  
It was not the first time she'd thought those words, and she shoved her thoughts brutally aside.  
  
She wasn't a big city doctor anymore.  
  
Tom picked up the Chocobo chick and cradled it gently. He was a good man, if a bit set in his ways, typical of his breed. Of course ranchers around these parts tended to be that way, a bunch of thickheaded, dependable, stoic worryworts. Clannish too. It had taken years to be accepted, grudgingly, into their midst.  
  
Of course, it helped that she was good at what she did, too. It had been hard at first. Of course, their suspicious nature meant that once you were a part of them, they defended you like family.  
  
Nor did they ask particularly prying questions.  
  
She grinned. "Well that about does it, Tom. Just try and keep an eye on her this time, ok?"  
  
He scowled. "It ain't easy what with them forner's wanderin' aroun' like they own the place. Couple of 'em tried ta run off with some o' my eggs, an' you damn well KNOW they wasn't gonna raise the things."  
  
She grimaced. That reminded her. "Well Tom, there's alot of people out there right now who could really use a bit of charity, what with Wutai exploding into violence like it has." She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I have to make a round or two up there, see if anyone needs my help."  
  
Tom snorted. "Kiddo, I don't see why you waste your time with that buncha thieves. They'd as soon rob ya as look at-"  
  
"Enough Tom! I'm surprised at you! You know they're too scared to come to me by themselves, and too poor and proud to accept help like that anyway. Where's your sense of charity?"  
  
He looked away sullenly. "At home, next to ma shotgun."  
  
She giggled helplessly at that thought, and he lightened up a bit. "I just worry about you, Teresa. You never know what kinda wierdos-"  
  
"SOMEBODY PLEASE, HELP ME!"  
  
He blinked. "What the sam hell?"  
  
She blinked back at him, then followed him quickly to the door and into the rainy night.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------  
  
She should have realized things were going too easily.  
  
Well they weren't really. Vincent was down and badly injured, possibly dying, for all she knew, they were currently being pursued by a pair of ruthless, cold-hearted killers, and to make matters worse, the clinic she remembered being here WASN'T here anymore... now it looked like some sort of waystation/ranch. Oh the old medical sign was still there, of course, but now there were corrals full of sickly looking animals, and a couple of makeshift sheds.  
  
To top it off, the damn chocobo had finally had enough of being bled on and was currently making her life a living hell.  
  
She fought with the reins, straining to pull the beast closer to the clinic, but the damn thing had set its claws and was currently determined to lift her off her feet.  
  
Vincent lolled oddly to the side, the only thing holding him on the creature's back was the fact that he was strapped to the damn saddle.  
  
"Come ON you stubborn BASTARD BIRD!" She screamed at it.  
  
It let out a panicky "WARK" and shifted it's head sideways, trying to chew on the reins.  
  
"Settle DOWN there! That ain't no way ta treat a lady!"  
  
She blinked and lost her hold on the reins at interruption of the strange voice, just as a large sunbrowned hand reached out and caught the reins before the beast could slip away. She went into fight or flight mode, jumpy and suspicious, but the large man in the overalls and button-up shirt simply shouldered her out of the way and crooned gently to the beast, reaching hesitantly up with his other large hand to stroke the frightened chocobo's feathered brow.  
  
It warked unhappily at him.  
  
"I know, I know girl. We'll get that slab a' meat offen ya." He whispered.  
  
"HEY!" Yuffie shouted indignantly. "Vincent is NOT a slab of meat!"  
  
The stranger never took his eyes off the chocobo. "Ya coulda fooled me, girl."  
  
"Geez, Tom... a little bedside manner never hurt anybody, you know?" The second voice was a soothing contralto, with just a hint of bemused humor in it. Yuffie blinked through the rain and caught sight of a middling height woman with chestnut brown hair and a tired look about her, like life was a constant, if sometimes amusing, chore. She wore a faded white coat with a few darkish stains on it.  
  
Tom snorted. "You're the doctor, T. I jus' don't like seein' a fine feathered friend bein' abused."  
  
Yuffie growled. "That fucker was abusing ME!"  
  
The doctor and the rancher gave her an unamused look. "What your language." They said simultaneously.  
  
She blinked. "What the f-" She sighed. "Ok look, can you forgive me if I'm a little tense right now? While we're arguing about my dirty mouth, my... my friend is bleeding to death! What's WRONG with you people!"  
  
The "doctor" came closer and noticed the blood all over her and her companion, blood that had been hidden by the rain and the night's darkness. "Holy shit!"  
  
Tom blinked. "What's up, Teresa?"  
  
The doctor's face hardened up like it did when she saw a long night coming. "Tom, get him off that damn thing and help me get him inside, quickly." She looked at the girl, who was staring at her dumbfounded. "You, there's a well not too far behind the clinic. You got any fire materia?"  
  
Yuffie blinked. "Do I have fire materia? Of course I have-"  
  
The woman cut her off. "Then get some water and heat it up, then bring it inside. We don't have a whole lotta time."  
  
Yuffie blinked. "Who the hell are you?"  
  
The doctor narrowed her eyes. "You wanna save your friend or not?"  
  
Yuffie blinked, then tore off towards the back of the clinic.  
  
The doctor smiled. "That's what I thought."  
  
Tom lifted the body off of the chocobo's back and grunted as she took the unconscious man's booted feet and helped him awkwardly carry him towards the clinic. "Teresa, this guy's shot up pretty bad. Someone shoots a man like this, he don't mean him to walk around no more. You sure you want this kinda trouble?"  
  
"I know Tom, I know... but..." She started wearily.  
  
Tom grinned. "But you never could keep your nose outta somethin'. Especially where people bein' hurt is concerned, eh?"  
  
She nodded, slightly bemused by Tom's sudden insight into her character.  
  
She caught sight of his left arm and froze for a moment, blinking. "What... the hell happened to you, stranger?" She muttered.  
  
Tom shot her a worried look, then drawled something slowly as he accepted a majority of the man's weight. "Yeah, I was kinda hopin' I was seein' things. Not ta mention, ya get a look at his iron?" He nodded at the huge, archaic looking revolver that graced the man's left hip. "This guy's no stranger ta violence. What if he deserved it?"  
  
She returned his worried expression. "I'll take my chances, Tom. Besides. A man who has a girl like that who cares that much for him can't be THAT bad, can he?"  
  
Tom gave her a droll expression. "Girls make mistakes."  
  
"Men do too." She returned sweetly.  
  
Tom had the grace to look embarassed.  
  
---------------------------------------------------  
  
Jaeger followed the trail closely, Reiko immediately behind him. In cases like this, were the visual clues were more immediately evident than the other ones, she usually let him take the lead. However, this time she hung back, and occasionally frowned, glancing back the other direction.  
  
He never took his eyes off the trail, frowning in concentration. "What is it, Schattenblum? You are very jumpy tonight."  
  
She grimaced. "I don't understand this tactic, Jaeger-sama. If this Vincent Valentine is as crafty as you say, why would he take no steps to hide his flight? Why would he flee towards the jungle rather than the city?"  
  
He shrugged. "I don't know, Reiko. It is not like him to panic, but he has not gotten off of the bird, nor has there been any sign of the girl. I would have noticed."  
  
She frowned.  
  
"Ah." He grinned. "They are slowing down. The steps are becoming erratic. I think the beast is getting tired."  
  
She followed him across several fallen trees and around a large hill... then stopped when she sensed he had stopped. She detected the strong, sharp scent of blood in the air.  
  
He frowned, then whispered. "There is the bird... but no sign of Vincent or the girl... they must be setting a trap."  
  
He turned to her. "You go around that copse of trees over there, I will stay here and see if I can spot them."  
  
She shook her head. "That is not necessary, Jaeger-sama."  
  
He raised his pistol and gave her a quizzical look. "Eh?"  
  
"They are not here."  
  
He looked back at the chocobo, then at her. "How do you..."  
  
She was gone. He glanced around and found her leading the bird towards him. It followed her amiably enough.  
  
There was weeping wound on its flank that was just beginning to scab over.  
  
"We were following a decoy." She said, tiredly. "I thought something smelled different."  
  
Jaeger was silent for a moment. Dangerously so.  
  
"I am sorry, Jaeger-sama. I should have said something."  
  
He was still silent.  
  
Then he began to laugh.  
  
"HA HA HA HA HA!" He holstered his pistol and leaned against the tree, wiping his eyes. "This is good. Heh. Very clever."  
  
He smiled. "I never suspected such a trick coming from Vin-" He frowned. Considering, then smiled again, his eyes brightening in revelation. "No... not Vincent, he would never stoop to such trickery. The GIRL! The GIRL saved HIM, and then led us on this wild goose chase!" He laughed.  
  
"You are not... angry, Jaeger-sama?" She asked hesitantly, stroking the Chocobo's head more for her own comfort than the bird's.  
  
"Eh, I was fooled just as badly as you were. It is no great matter." He beamed. "So, Vincent Valentine lives to fight another day."  
  
She smiled, relieved at how he was taking this. It was sometimes hard to tell how he'd accept adversity.  
  
"We might still be able to catch them if we hurry-" She started.  
  
"No. No, mein Schattenblum... they have earned a reprieve, for now." He leaned his back against the tree and crossed his arms, closing his eyes. "Next time, your sole responsibility is the girl, Reiko. The two of you think... very much alike. It is time we stopped underestimating her."  
  
"Hai." She said shortly, nodding.  
  
"Heal well, Vincent Valentine." He said softly, mostly to himself. "Remember the sting of my fangs. The next time we meet, I look forward to facing the REAL Schwarze Tod, eh?" 


	10. We All Fall Down

A/N: Once again, we ride the merry-go-round of OH MY GOD, THE GUY DRIVING THE BUS IS BLIND! Yes chillin's I have NO idea what I'm doing with this.

Ok, that's a lie, but it's comforting nonetheless. Please don't think any less of me because I draw stupid scenes out far beyond what they should rationally be. I know this story updates far too slowly... I know my narrative rambles at times and speeds up to dizzy levels the next...

I just hope you all enjoy it, that's all. Keep on keepin' on. And as usual, on with the show.

"Hello my friend we meet again, it's been awhile, where should we begin... Feels like forever. Within my heart a memory, a perfect love that you gave to me. Oh I remember... When you are with me, I'm free... I'm careless, I believe. Above all the others, we'll fly, this brings tears to my eyes. My sacrifice. We've seen our share of ups and downs, how quickly life can turn around. In an instant. It feels so good to be alive, within yourself, and within mine. Let's find peace there. 'Cause when you are with me, I'm free... I'm careless, I believe. Above all the others, we'll fly. It brings tears, to my eyes.... My sacrifice." -Creed, My Sacrifice

There were 172 tiles in the ceiling.

In the length and breadth of her somewhat checkered (perhaps, considering her extremely dubious nature, better read as plaid) career as a Materia Hunter (again, perhaps better read as flat out thief) Yuffie had been called many things. Some of these things were actually true. Bear in mind that someone you lifted several hundred gil worth of materia off of is not generally the same person you would want testifying as a character witness at the subsequent trial. However, or perhaps because of this, Yuffie had developed quite a reputation, in certain circles. Certain words, not all of them entirely flattering had been used to describe her. Impulsive, certainly. Blunt, brave, sneaky, again, no contest. 

Patient... ahem, no.

Yuffie didn't really have what one would call patience, although she was capable of a reasonable facsimile of the virtue. In fact, to all outward appearances, she could appear completely at ease with waiting. However, in cases where patience is called for, Yuffie had developed a habit of simply focusing on something with so much intensity that she forgot how boring or frustrating it was to be waiting for something.

Essentially, tricking her own brain.

Hence, she had therefore discovered, after careful perusal, that there were 172 sound absorbant plaster tiles in the waiting room's off-white ceiling. 

-What was up with that anyway?- she thought irritably. -Aren't hospitals supposed to be stringently and strictly clean and sterile?-

This particular waiting room had, for the comfort of its occupants, only one ugly puke green couch that had seen better days (several years ago), upon which Yuffie was currently perched, as well as a battered metal magazine rack that held only several years old copies of Bird Wranglers Magazine and Junon Monthly. Competing with the "Couch That Time Forgot" were several opened wooden crates, with the enigmatic and highly unlikely stencil "Happy-Time" printed next to a red-paint picture of an anthropomorphic Chocobo grinning its fool head off, haphazardly stacked in one corner. The unpleasant aroma of large, unhappy bird permeated the small room, competing with the sharp scent of greens and a faint whiff of cheap cigarettes.

Not exactly a scene that set her completely at ease with the chances of her friend's survival.

Not that the good doctor and her gruff companion hadn't been trying, mind you. Of the doctor she had seen neither hide nor hair after she'd delivered several jugs of hot water (courtesy of her mastered Fire Materia), which was pretty much as she'd expected. The rancher, Tom, as she'd heard him called, had reasoned with, and when THAT hadn't worked, bodily dragged her to the modest house behind the clinic, where she was allowed (read as damn near forced) to attend to herself.

If Tom was a bit put out with her about the large bruises that would certainly grace his shins, courtesy of her vented ire about being dragged away from Vincent, he gave no sign.

Still, now bathed, fed and clothed in something that didn't look like it had gone through rinse cycle in an abbatoir, she'd been allowed back into the waiting room, in which she... well, waited.

She looked down at her battered sneakers, her study of the ceiling tiles long since abandoned.

In the absence of occupation, her mind wandered like a man late for work and suffering from a hangover searching for his missing keys. In other words, panicky, painfully, and not without much effect.

-He'll be ok... I mean, this is Vincent we're talking about. Death would probably just shake it's head and say something to the effect of, "Oh, it's YOU again."-She thought miserably.

People like Vincent didn't... die. Cool, unflappable, scarily competant people like Vincent never died. It was like a rule or something. Certainly they didn't die saving the life of some foolish kid.

She sighed. That's what she felt like. A kid. There were so many "what if's" and "if only's" buzzing in her head, but most of them circled like buzzards around the carcass of one badly injured, enigmatic gunman. She hated not being in control... of the situation... of the circumstances.

Of herself.

It was that damn kiss. She KNEW it meant nothing to him... the woman he'd been kissing had been dead for decades, and existed only as a phantom in his tortured soul. He'd been delerious, certainly, half-crazy with pain and hurt...

It didn't matter. It HAD been real to her, and it had forced her to face several unwanted truths about herself.

Well... really one in particular.

As in the case of the aforementioned hungover man looking for his keys, the answer to her problem lay in her pants.

Or, if one were a trifle less cynical, or perhaps a tad more perceptive, in her heart.

She was in love with Vincent Valentine.

She didn't know how it had happened. Vincent was just NOT the kind of guy she normally went for. As she analyzed it, she realized she'd always been a bit shallow when it came to men. She tended to go after the same basic archetype; extroverted, bright colored, maybe just a little dumb... kinda like a St. Bernard puppy. Which was, of course, why Cloud had attracted her when she first met him. There honestly didn't appear to be much to understand about the blonde haired, huge meat cleaver of a sword carrying warrior, and she'd liked that. She knew where she'd stood with Cloud, and any moves that were going to be made were going to be hers.

Of course, time revealed just what a wriggly can of worms THAT individual had in his wartorn psyche... Tifa had her work cut out for her in that one, and she was welcome to it. 

And Reno... if she hadn't wanted to kick his teeth into his brainstem, Reno certainly had had potential. It hadn't worked out though... he had a drinking habit, and he was a nasty drunk. He was acidic and surly... an attitude that spoke of hidden pain, and further, he had made the mortal error of calling her a flat chested, gawky teeny bopper.

Eh, his loss.

So why Vincent... Why oh WHY Vincent? Old introverted, tortured, closed mouthed, gothic, angsty Vinnie? He had BAGGAGE. Baggage like... like an airport. 

Ok, certainly the man was attractive, but he put NO effort into appearing so... in fact, he seemed to work to create an aura of "just leave me to stagnate on my own, thank you". Of course, that begged the question of how Vincent might appear if he decided to put some effort into looking attractive...

Shudder. Let's not go there.

The man had issues, but there was something about him... a honesty and sense of honor that the Wutain martial artist in her found very compelling. He made no excuses, and despite his issues, he didn't WHINE. He accepted his burdens.

Stoic was the word, she thought.

He WAS hurt. Deep in his soul. It awakened certain impulses in her that scared her in their intensity.

Of course, she'd been attracted to Vinnie since just a little after she'd stopped being so angry at him for shooting her. If attraction were all she had to deal with, she wouldn't have worried. She was mature enough to know the difference between attraction and something deeper. She was in agony at the thought that she might lose Vincent, but the way the anxiety in her verged on sheer panic told her there was a little more to this longing than meets the eye.

No, that kiss had done something to her.

She'd been confused when it happened, confused and more than a little scared. The way he'd looked at her, dazed, pained confusion yes, but there was a HUNGER there... a need, that she'd never seen before. All that had ended when his lips met hers. It was like a bell had rung in her soul, resounding from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.

DING DING DING! We have a winner! Bob, tell him what he's won!

Why, the lifetime obsession of a lovestruck ninja girl, Chuck.

Simultaneously the instinctual part of her, that primordial, ape-like beast that hides beneath the thin veneer of civilization in all of us sat up, took notice, and howled something that can't really be translated, but which amounts to about the most honest reaction.

"MINE."

All of which pretty much meant that Yuffie was destined to be miserable. At least while she was in that special form of limbo reserved for teenagers who have yet to confess their feelings for the object of their crush.

Made worse by the fact that Vinnie was knocking on death's door at the moment.

-I swear,- she thought, -If that jerk dies on me, I'll never forgive him.-

Then, a few minutes later, a more honest thought escaped her.

-Leviathan please. I've never asked for anything before... well ok, there was that one time I broke that ceremonial Urn that contained the ashes of my great great great great grandfather and then super glued it back together and replaced the ashes with some ashes I found in the stove, but that shouldn't count, cause it was like ten years ago. Please... let him live. It just... it just wouldn't be right for him to die without being happy... at least once in his life.-

A disconsolate sigh. -And since that's probably gonna be a while, Vinnie needs to be around for quite some time.-

Which again, amounts to an amazingly unselfish thought on her part... at least, if you discount the fact that she is assuming she's going to be the one to make him happy, but I think we can forgive her, don't you?

With a sharp crack, the door opened suddenly, causing Yuffie to start and nearly tip over the poorly balanced couch. The doctor shuffled out, her coat a bit the worse for wear. 

She looked Yuffie over quietly, as though taking her measure.

Yuffie eyed her back. She tried very hard to keep hope from flooding her face.

She met with limited success.

The doctor final shook her head shortly and jerked her head in the direction of the door. "Come on, honey. Let's go outside for a smoke."

Yuffie blinked. Started to say something to the effect of "I don't smoke". Then remembered some of the conversations she'd had with Cid when HE went outside to smoke and she happened to follow him.

She got up and followed the doctor, with some trepidation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"So... is he gonna...?" Yuffie started, quietly.

The doctor snapped her pack of cigarettes sharply against her palm, packing the tabacco. She eyed Yuffie, not unkindly.

"What's your name, honey?" She asked finally.

"Yuffie. The guy... his name is Vincent."

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Well Yuffie... if you'd a brought me someone in Vincent's condition before tonight, I'd probably be signing a death certificate and tying a tag around his toe. Which brings me to my questions." She fished inside her pocket and handed Yuffie a small, disproportionately heavy bit of deformed metal.

"You know what this is?" She asked conversationally, removing a cigarette and lighting it after two false starts of her lighter.

Yuffie was starting to get a bit pissed off at the doctor's attitude. She acted like this was simply a matter of course, like people she cared about got shot every day. She gritted her teeth.

"I don't really care, frankly. I want to know if Vincent's-"

"You SHOULD care, Yuffie. You should care alot. That's a .45 calibre ShinraCorp mythril jacket Armor Piercing round. That particular specimen is the only one I was able to find, which is surprising."

Yuffie blinked.

"Surprising because it was still in his body. Surprising because aside from someone wearing body armor, I've never SEEN one of those NOT pass completely through someone."

Yuffie shook her head. "So what does that-"

The doctor interrupted her. "I want to know what the hell is going on here, Yuffie. Your friend should be dead. Not, not just once, but three times over. Whoever shot him was a professional. I've SEEN wounds like that before... on cadavers. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that the shooter was a Turk, or at the very least, Turk trained."

Yuffie stared at her. She continued in chilling, professional monotone.

"In the business, this sort of shooting is called a takedown tap. Three rounds dead center mass, drop the target, then follow up with a single shot to the head. Since there was no shot to the head, I assume he was interrupted somehow."

Yuffie winced. "You could say that. We kinda... fell off a cliff."

The doctor looked out over the horizon, tapping ash off of her cigarette. She appeared very thoughtful.

"Perfect shot... triple tap to the dead center mass..."

Yuffie bit her lip. "That's right in the heart..."

The doctor gazed at her sidelong. Her face softened a bit. "Right, like I said, perfect shot. Which is why your friend's going to live."

Yuffie blinked. "That... doesn't make any sense."

The doctor turned to regard her completely. "Yuffie, someone has done some things to your friend in there... things that make... very little sense. It's like... it's like someone took him apart and put him back together again, only in some ways they put him together better, and in others they..." she shuddered. "Let's just say if you told me a madman had had a go at him, I wouldn't be surprised."

"What do you mean?" Yuffie asked softly.

"It's like a mad scientist's laundry list... for starters, someone reinforced his spinal column with a millimeter of mythral mesh." She shook her head. "If he wasn't breathing, I'd have told you that was impossible. Not to mention impractical... the amount of internal scar tissue suggests that your friend should be in almost constant pain. That's why the bullet was stopped by the way. It caused a few complications, tumbled through his chest, bisected his right lung like a knife. What NONE of the wounds did, however, was hit his heart."

Yuffie was watching her intently now.

"Because this guy doesn't HAVE a heart, exactly. Someone decentralized his heart... spread the valves through his body... seemingly at random. It took me an hour just to FIND what was pumping blood through his system. So those bullets just passed right through." She shook her head. 

"He's only got one kidney... god knows what happened to the other one. He's been Mako enhanced, in a way I wouldn't have even thought possible, let alone survivable. His arm... I'm not even gonna start there."

Yuffie looked down. "Vincent is... was... one of Hojo's experiments. I gather the two of them didn't get along very well."

The doctor frowned. "Hojo, huh?" She was quiet for a while. "Well, that explains alot."

Yuffie looked up at her. "You know an awful lot about Shinra, Hojo and the Turks, lady."

Teresa looked at her, her face set in stone. Yuffie looked back accusingly, almost challengingly so. 

The doctor was the first one to look away.

Yuffie watched her carefully, then looked away herself. She remembered how things had been right after the terror of Meteor settled down. How the only thing anyone could really seem to agree on was that SOMEONE had to be blamed for what happened. How when the Shinra labs where Hojo had done some of his "best" work had been brought to light. Society had put up with Shinra for too long, and the backlash of moral outrage had been fearsome indeed. A shitstorm of blame-laying and accusations. The crowd needed a scapegoat.

With Hojo dead, this fell to the remainder of his science team. Most of whom had disappeared only to be rounded up later on with different identities. They knew which way the wind was blowing. Of course, this hadn't helped them much. Very few of them made it to any sort of trial, a testiment to the ugly nature of mob mentality.

Being associated with Shinra Medical Science Division was definately a health hazard nowadays.

Yuffie proceeded carefully. "Let's just say that some people have some very dark moments in their pasts. Things they maybe don't want to remember... but that have nothing to do with who they are now. Does that sound about right, Doctor?"

Teresa let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Right. "

She paused.

"Though for the record... I had nothing to do with... you know."

Yuffie shrugged. "I don't know, or care, really. What I want to know is... h-how is he?"

Teresa frowned. "It's hard to say... You have to understand, I've never seen anything LIKE Vincent before. He shouldn't even be alive in the first place. It awakens a certain level of professional curiousity... morbidly, of course. Still..."

She shrugged. "I'd be willing to bet that if it doesn't kill him outright, he could survive damn near anything."

Yuffie let out her own shaky breath. "T-thanks, Doc. T-that me-" She paused, trying to get a hold of herself. "Means a-"

She lost it, sobbing uncontrollably. The doctor gathered her awkwardly into shoulder and patted her back. 

She smelled like blood, cigarettes, and alcohol. The medicinal kind. (alcohol that is, I don't think they make medicinal cigarettes... well, tabacco ones anyway)

Yuffie sobbed quietly and hated herself for it. All the tension, the fear, the guilt... it was just too much released at once. "T-This is so s-stupid... it's n-not like me at a-all. I'm just s-so glad..."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know." The doctor said gently. "Caring for someone like that, I mean."

Yuffie said nothing for a long time. "I-" She said, falteringly.

The doctor sighed. "He doesn't know, does he?"

She shook her head. "Vincent's... well... he's not exactly the easiest person to relate to..."

The doctor raised an eyebrow, before continuing in a sardonic fashion. "Oh I don't know, he's got tall... and dark... and even though the circumstances weren't exactly the best, he's approaching handsome..."

Yuffie shook her head and smiled slightly. "Yeah but..."

The doctor grinned wryly. "Lemme guess. Baggage, right?"

Yuffie nodded, blushing. "Like an airport. I know it's silly... He's... well, I THINK he's still hung up on this girl from his past. How can I compete with a memory like that? I mean, in his mind, she's like perfect, and I am like... SO not."

The doctor nodded. "I figured as much. If you don't mind my asking, how did he get shot? You said something about falling off a cliff..."

Yuffie blushed. "That was kinda MY fault, him being shot. He pushed me out of the way which incidently, was how I ended up going over a cliff."

The doctor blinked. "So he saved your life by pushing you OFF a cliff?"

Yuffie reddened again. "Well, that and get shot in my place."

The doctor grinned. "Well... it takes a very interesting mindset to take a bullet for someone, Yuffie. I wouldn't give up hope just yet. Things like this have a habit of working themselves out."

Yuffie sighed. "He probably hates me... if I hadn't been so stupid and got him put in jail like that... he never would have gotten shot."

The doctor blinked. "Ok... maybe you'd better start from the beginning, Yuffie."

Yuffie sighed, then proceeded to do just that. It started slowly, but eventually the details came out. The doctor listened calmly, asking questions from time to time to clarify one point or another, but making no judgements. Yuffie, to her surprise, found herself feeling better relating the events which lead to her knocking so desperately on the doctor's door. It was cathartic, a release.

As the tension and fear drained from her, she suddenly realized she was exhausted. She ended her story with a yawn that threatened to snap her head in half. The doctor smiled gently, then dropped her second cigarette of the evening and stomped it gently underfoot.

"Quite a story, Yuffie. So... what do you plan to do now?"

Yuffie frowned. "I don't know. There's still so much I don't know about... back home. It's just... too much to take in at once. To be honest, I haven't had a whole lot of time to think about it."

"Weeelllp, one thang's fer sure. If'n those fellers who're after ya show up, they'll have ta deal with me an' ma shotgun." A cool drawling voice errupted from the gloom, startling both of them.

"Tom, when did you get back?" Teresa asked curiously, after the initial heart attack moment had passed.

Tom grinned whitely in the dark. "Oh, round about halfway through story hour. I got on the CB an' let the fellers know ta keep an eye out fer tresspassers, so you don't need to worry none about havin' enough time to patch yer friend up."

"Well..." Teresa started. "Thank you, Tom... but I don't-"

"Oh we ain't havin' none o' that, Miss T. I believe I speak fer all us rancher folk out here when I say any bastard comin' after ya'll have ta deal with us as well." He made a face. "You got any idea how hard it is ta find a good animal doc out here? Oh I got a bit o' the husbandry, we all do, but it ain't the same thang."

"No Ma'am, I'd jus' as soon keep ya safe." He grinned. "If'n ya don't mind, that is."

Teresa blinked, a sudden knot building in her throat. She hadn't realized... it had been so long since she felt like she was a part of something...

She choked a moment, then calmed herself. "Thank you, Thomas... I... thank you."

Tom nodded shortly. "I'll be in waitin' room if'n ya need me. I'd appreciate some blankets an' the like, Miss T."

Teresa nodded shortly. "Alright Tom, I'll get you fixed up." She turned to Yuffie, who sat quietly with a bemused but thoughtful (or possibly just sleepy) expression. 

"If I might suggest something, Yuffie...?"

Yuffie eyed her, exhaustion making her squint owlishly. "Hmm?"

Teresa nodded. "You should get some sleep. Your friend isn't going anywhere, and I gather you aren't going to leave him behind again. Things might be a bit clearer for you in the morning." When you're not so tired you look like you're about to collapse on your face, she didn't aid, though she thought it.

Yuffie frowned. "But I wanna be there when he wakes up..."

Teresa raised an eyebrow. "Even if you're in no condition to do anything but snore?"

Yuffie blushed. "I don't snore..." She sighed. "But I get the hint. Can I at least...?"

Teresa sighed, looking upward in a long-suffering manner. "I suppose I could move a cot into the waiting room. Just this once."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Vincent drifted through foggy maroon clouds. Flashes of memory, like jagged spikes of lightning tossed down by angry gods, lit up the sordid events of his past in painstaking procession. As stated earlier, Vincent did not dream, and this remained true even when he was unconscious.

Even through the clouds of pain and confusion that he drifted, he could still sense the demon's presence like an oily stain in his mind.

"Welcome to my world, Vincent." The demon whispered. The clouds took shape, becoming a stairway of fire, leading to a black iron throne.

Vincent lifted his gaze to the Demon and set his jaw. He remained silent.

The demon clasped its chin in one taloned hand and cocked its curiously. "Nothing to say, killer? How utterly typical of you."

Vincent narrowed his eyes. "Am I dead then? Is this-"

"Hell?" The demons eyes glittered. "Hell is an eternity in freezing nothingness, alone and forgotten. Forsaken. Hell is a highly personal experience, killer."

Vincent fell silent.

"No, this place..." The demon gestured. "This is the niche that I have carved out of the barren landscape of your soul. It isn't much, but then, I seldom entertain guests, so I suppose it does well enough."

Vincent turned and looked skyward, into the neverending maroon clouds, drifting like spoiled blood through a featureless sky.

"Desolate place, isn't it?" The demon said, almost conversationally. 

"About what I expected." Vincent said, after a moment's cool appraisal.

The demon shook his head. "Only you, Valentine, could be so blase about your own tattered, pathetic state."

The gunman turned to the demon and wearily sighed. "I am only what I was made into, Chaos. Though I expect I had something to do with..." He gestured with his golden claw.

The demon shrugged, then stared at Vincent intently. If the gunman was made edgy by his attention, he gave no sign.

"You, Mr. Valentine, are a tough nut to crack." He said musingly.

"What do you have left to fight for? Why do you persist in this sad, tragic display of futility? The world you know is dead and buried."

Vincent lifted his gaze upward, towards the demon.

"Still, you DO persist. You fight me at every turn, when surrender would be such a release. I KNOW you feel it, Vincent. Oblivion beckons you with a smile and a wink."

Vincent continued to stare.

The demon leaned forward. "And yet..."

"And yet you would sacrifice yourself without hesitation for a girl you barely know."

Vincent cocked his head. Then he looked down at his hands quietly. One human, pale, slender, strong... an artist's hands. The other golden, alien, hard and immobile, oversized claws glinting in the faint illumination of his mindscape.

"Some things are worth preserving, Demon. Worth more than me, certainly."

The Demon scoffed. "I think there is more to this, Vincent. I think that if you believe that, you are lying to yourself."

Vincent's face betrayed no hint of anger, but something glinted in his eyes as he looked past the Demon. He remained silent for a long moment, then final spoke the words in a bleak tone.

"I failed her. I promised her that I would protect her, even if she hated me. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be safe."

"In the end, I couldn't even save our child from HIS madness."

The Demon nodded thoughtfully. "I'd always wondered... I suppose it makes sense, considering how similar the two of you are."

Vincent looked up sharply. "You mean you didn't know? How-"

The Demon sighed, all bravado absent. "Vincent, I am not omniscient. What happened to you before we were fused together, I can only catch glimpses of when you remember, or what I can dredge up to show you. I don't know your mind anymore than you know mine."

Vincent lowered his hands. "I suspected, when she went to him. I wondered when he seemed SO... ecstatic... I remember something he said, just before he shot me."

"How pleasant, when scientific necessity and personal vengeance coincide, Mr. Valentine. Die knowing that you will make my crowning glory a more perfect creation."

"When I saw Sephiroth... I knew, then. But it was too late."

The demon cocked his head. "You knew... and yet you did nothing to stop his death?"

Vincent's face became a study in bleakness.

"I am infinitely familiar from personal experience how to recognize madness when it bears its ugly fangs at me, Demon. Hojo had done his work well."

Vincent shook his head as though clearing it. "I'm not doing this for Godo, or Wutai, or all of those innocent people, Chaos. I'm not even doing it for Yuffie, really."

"I am doing it for myself. For once in my life, I have a made a promise that I will keep." He grinned, a very strange expression on his normally solemn face. "She is... everything that I am not. Innocent... despite all the world has thrown at her. I will preserve that innocence. I don't think she understands me."

"I hope she never does."

Chaos shook his head, a nasty grin flitting about his features, though it was somewhat hard to tell on the demon. "You underestimate her, Vincent. There is more depth to your butterfly than you give her credit for. You may not see that now, but you will. Of course, by then you will be too late. Your "butterfly" bears a much better resemblance to a spider." He paused. "Well, a CUTE spider, in any case."

Vincent blinked.

Chaos grinned nastily. "Of course, in that respect, you are far too late. Fate has once again entangled you in its web, and for once, Vincent Valentine... I am glad to be along for the ride. The sheer extent of the possibilities unravelling into the future is breathtaking."

Vincent started to ask what that meant, but Chaos receded farther and farther from him, until he was left alone.

He floated for an eternity.

He floated for an instant.

He awoke.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sense returned to Vincent slowly, in stages. First, as always, was the pain... though not as much as he had been expecting. A deep, abiding ache in his chest, with a sharper flare of pain coinciding with each slow, labored breath he drew. He felt a soft mattress under him, cool sheets above, up to his chest, which felt slightly cool. 

Smell was next... antiseptic, alcohol, blood, and strangely, large bird and cigarettes... 

The room... the... place, in which he was resting was silent, save for the sound of his own labored breathing. Opening his eyes slowly, he was met with cool inky twilight. 

He blinked slowly. Then waited patiently for his eyes to adjust. The faint moonlight coming from a nearby window provided enough illumination to confirm that he was in a location he did not recognize. Experimentally, he tried to sit up.

It took several moments of agonized straining, but he finally managed to sit up, supporting himself on the metal bedrail, breathing heavily and sweating.

He forced himself to breath deeply but slowly, paused for a moment until the pain subsided to bearable levels. He looked at himself.

His chest was tightly bandaged in a professional manner. It was this bandage, in fact, that hindered his breathing. He blinked in confusion... how... had he gotten here? How had he survived?

He searched his memories for answers... desperately pushing Yuffie in the only direction that suggested even a modicum of safety, the white hot pain of bullets tearing into his flesh... Jaeger's oddly dissappointed, yet set features following him into the nausea inducing tip over the edge of the world...

Arguing with Chaos... a descent into darkness.... darkness he had been convinced would be eternal.

Lucrecia staring at him in a manner he'd never seen, confused and scared. It was such an odd expression that he'd searched her face for the meaning behind it, but found nothing. Her words had made no sense... none at all. Then her face had flickered back and forth, becoming younger, her hair darkening...

He'd kissed her, he remembered. In a way, it was an attempt to escape... to latch onto something that didn't hurt. 

In another way, it was a chance to say goodbye. He'd never gotten that opportunity, before. He wished he could have said he was sorry that things had turned out the way they had, but that was too much. 

Now here he was. He frowned slightly.

That girl... the dark haired one... that must have been Yuffie. She'd dragged him here? How had she eluded Jaeger?

Jaeger... a name he never thought he'd hear again. Vincent had been somewhat curious what had happened to the Turks during his long imprisonment. The modern day Turks were rabble, barely worthy of the Turk name. Their leader had been the last of an old breed, a breed ended by Sephiroth, who had murdered the Turk leader. Of the Turks who'd been in Shinra when Vincent had been a team leader, all had either retired and disappeared into one relocation program or another, as Turks who'd gained quite a few enemies in the line of duty inevitably did, or been killed in one operation or another, as UNLUCKY Turks who'd gained quite a few enemies in the line of duty inevitably did. From the information he'd been able to gather, after Vincent's death, Jaeger had become a team leader. He'd disappeared during the war with Wutai, during the occupation of their port city that had only lasted three days before the Wutainese had retaken it... and he'd been presumed dead.

Apparently that presumption had been... inaccurate.

Yuffie. Was she alright? He was suddenly filled with a burning and for the most part inexplicable need to see to her safety. He told himself that it was simply his duty calling to him.

hAving defined it in a manner that felt safe, he immediately felt better. Still, he resolved himself to find her.

Gripping the side of the metal bed-frame with both his real hand and the metal one, he torturously slipped his sluggishly responding lower extremities onto the floor. Cold tiles met his bare toes, a chill that ran up his legs to stab at his brain. 

Experimentally, he stood up.

Not so experimentally, he fell flat on his face.

A century or so later, he managed to flip himself onto his back, the cold tile floor making him shiver. He stared down at himself in dismay. He still had his pants, but he could see what was left of his shirt and cloak on the chair next to him, along with his boots. Dragging himself painfully across the floor, he took hold of his boots.

It took several minutes, but he finally managed to draw himself into a sitting position on the chair, then with the solemn dignity and patience of an extremely old man, he put on his boots. Thus better clothed, he felt marginally more human. More in control.

He glanced around for his weapon belt, and shoulder holster, but was unable to locate them. Pity. He felt naked without his weapons.

With more care this time, he pushed himself to a standing position, using the chair as support. He eyed the room carefully. A wooden door stood on the far wall, next to what appeared to Vincent to be several miles of white countertop scored multiple times by what looked like Chocobo scratches, gouges and the occasional faded but still noticable stain. Medicines of various types and the sort of things one would expect to see in a doctor's office lined the bare metal shelves that ran along with the counters around the room.

Vincent took a deep breath, counted slowly to three, then pushed himself towards the counter nearest the door. Vincent was unable to prevent himself from falling, having neither the strength nor the balance to maintain an upright position without support. He was, however, able to make his descent a controlled fall towards the counter, catching it with both palms and maintaining his upright (if slightly leaned over) position by the sheer strength of will and iron determination that made his targets while he was a Turk whisper his name fearfully, lest he appear. Carefully, he shuffled his way over to the door and eased it open, peering into the room beyond.

A sigh escaped him when he saw a ten-foot long corridor terminating in another door. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth, and with the same grim determination, inched his way down the corridor using the wall for support. Arriving at the door, he paused for a moment to catch his wheezing breath, regain a bit of his waning strength, then cautiously opened the door and looked out.

Snores met him in the darkness, and he looked in direction from which they assaulted him. A large man with a particularly bushy mustache curiously wrapped in a thick flannel blanket, with what appeared to be a 12 gauge shotgun propped barrel down between his knees, snored loudly from his position on a large, remarkably ugly green couch. Vincent's gaze traveled studiously across the room, to a window, then down, resting on a metal cot similar to the one he'd been sleeping in, took in the occupant currently resting in it, and for a moment Vincent forgot to breathe.

Yuffie, unconsciously curled in the fetal position in her sleep, rested with only her face outside the blankets. The moonlight reflected off of her pale cheek, her face completely free of the animation that normally graced it, lending it a surreal whiteness. Alternatively, her tossled black hair soaked up the moonlight like a sponge, reflecting none of it.

She looked impossibly delicate and fragile, in that weak light.

She also appeared indescribably beautiful.

Without realizing it, Vincent found himself looking down at her peaceful face quietly, an inexplicable feeling of serenity washing over him.

Then her eyes opened.

Vincent froze. The feeling of serenity vanished and was replaced with a growing sense of danger.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yuffie had never been a particularly deep sleeper, since her long years on the run from one disgruntled "customer" or another had taught her hard lessons about not rousing quickly. Still, for a split second, when she regained awareness, she found herself staring up, frozen at the sight of the gaunt, pale apparition before her. 

To say Vincent had seen better days would be something of an understatement. His pale chest, which was currently bare, was so covered in bandages that from just above his navel to just below his collarbone, he most closely resembled a mummy. The exposed skin on his human arm, and the skin just above the bandages was deeply bruised, the sort of painful looking discoloration that spoke of past internal bleeding. His face was gaunt and tired looking, but composed... if the gunman was in pain, he showed no sign.

He looked like hell.

There was no other man in the world right now Yuffie would have rather fixed her gaze on.

In an instant she was upright, the blanket flittering to the ground at her feet like a startled ghost. She threw her arms around Vincent and hugged him, tightly.

"Oh Leviathan, Vincent... I'm so glad you're ok!" She sobbed.

"..." Responded Vincent, intelligently.

"When I saw how much blood you'd lost, I thought for sure you were gonna die on me, Vinnie... plus those creeps were still up there, and then Chaos flew us down, and he scared the living CRAP outta me, and he had this voice like... RRRRRR.... or something like that, like he had a really bad cold or something, and-"

"Yuffie..." VIncent's voice snapped into her monologue with quiet authority, stunning her with the powerful emotion it contained.

She looked up, almost afraid of what she'd see, her heart pounding in her chest like a drum.

Vincent looked down at her, his eyes, his features, full of some unknown emotion. He took a deep, shuddery breath.

"That.... really.... hurts."

Yuffie released him like his skin had become covered in nettles. "Oh SHIT, Vinnie! Crap, I'm so sorry... I wasn't thinking, that was so STUPID!"

Vincent, thrown off balance by her sudden release of pressure, and not entirely stable to BEGIN with (heh, and not just physically, heh heh) wavered for a moment, then collapsed backward on his rump.

He sighed quietly, a long suffering, and yet strangely relieved release of breath.

Yuffie held a wince of sympathy on her face as she looked down at him. "Vinnie... um... I don't think you should be outta bed. You were in surgery not like... three hours ago."

As usual, Vincent answered her by not acknowledging she'd said anything in the first place, but strangely, this didn't piss her off like it usually did.

It felt... comfortable.

"You're alright. I was..." He trailed off, grabbing the side of the metal cot.

She looked down at him. "You were what?"

He compressed his mouth into a fine line and tried to push himself to his feet again.

He met with only partial success, rising to one shaky knee.

"You were WHAT, hmmm... Vincent?" She said, her voice full of sly confidence.

"Wondering. If you'd made it... without injury." He cast his eyes up at her.

"Uh huh. Right, Vinnie." She beamed at him, curiously satisfied with his evasiveness. "Need a hand."

He watched her, narrowing his eyes slightly. Without his cloak it was a little easier for her to make out changing emotions on his face, though what emotions those were was still somewhat vague. he compressed his mouth tightly again, then held his good hand out.

She clasped it firmly. It was cool, his grasp firm. She could feel the strength in his fingers. She wondered what they'd feel like on her bare skin. Then she mentally kicked her hentai impulses in the shins for being a dumb ass. She leaned back and heaved, helping the gunman to his unsteady feet.

He looked away, and she released his hand.

"Thank you." He muttered quietly.

"No problem, Vin." She teased.

His brow quirked. "Vin?" He looked at her sharply.

"Hey, at least it ain't Vinnie." She grinned.

He blinked. "I think I like Vinnie, better."

"I KNEW you secretly dug that nickname, Vinnie!" She crowed triumphantly.

Vincent sighed deeply and raised his eyes to the heavens, raising and lowering his shoulders with the sigh.

Yuffie put her hands on her hips, her expression and mood changing with a speed only the mercurial teenager was capable of. The kind of speed that made Vincent's head spin when he WASN'T exhausted and hurt.

"Vincent Valentine, what the HELL are you doing out of bed? You nearly DIED, you know?"

Vincent turned his limpid gaze to her and shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

She blinked. "What, getting out of bed?"

"Dying."

She scowled. "Well it's NOT, you asshole! You gotta stick around, Vinnie!" She reddened. "'Cause... because, well..."

Vincent watched her flounder for a moment, silently confused at her reaction.

"So..." he started quietly. "I take it since you're still here, even though I was unconscious for several hours, that you have decided running off isn't an option anymore?"

Yuffie's embarassment turned to anger. "You ASSHOLE! I was WORRIED about you! You think I would just take off, leave you here... like I didn't care if you lived or died? Do you really think I'm THAT irresponsible? Or heartless?"

It was Vincent's turn to feel awkward. He turned his gaze slightly. "I'm sorry." He muttered shortly.

She continued to watch him, still a bit pissed. He continued not to meet her gaze, silently, and she realized that that was the most she was going to get from him. She sighed deeply and sat down on the cot, her legs crossed at the ankles and kicking back and forth under the cot, hands in her lap. She looked down.

"Vincent... is Godo... is my father really... dying?" She whispered.

Vincent's gaze turned back to her, his expression neutral, but soft, in a way. Though it may have been just a trick of the light.

"Yes. Yes he is." He said softly, not one to prevaricate or hash words.

She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "Why... why didn't you tell me?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, then, in an uncharacteristically human moment, he sat down carefully next to her and looked down at his own lap.

"You wouldn't have believed it, coming from me. Not at first. Not after I'd been sent by him."

She looked at him, tried to find some way to argue with him, but she knew he was right. She would have figured something like that from Godo... some stupid trick to get her to come back willingly. 

"So now... now Wutai is in the middle of a civil war, my father might be dead, and there are assassins after me." She sighed. "Is that... about the score?"

He nodded quietly. "Yes."

"What... what do I do, Vincent?"

Vincent shook his head. He was silent for a long time, as though steeling himself to answer. "Godo wanted me to take you back to Wutai... because it was safer there, with you in control, than out here."

She watched him, her eyes sad. All of this could have been avoided... but she didn't WANT to rule Wutai. To be stuck there... she didn't know the first thing about being a leader.

"But that's not true anymore, Yuffie." He winced as though speaking so much hurt him, but continued anyway. "Wutai is full of enemies now... it isn't safe."

She glanced at him, confused.

"YOU have to choose what happens now, Yuffie. If you stay away from Wutai, the assassins will probably keep coming... at least, as long as you're alive." He paused.

"But you won't have to worry about leading anyone. You won't be responsible for anyone but yourself."

She waited.

"If you go back, you'll probably get killed... and if you succeed in taking the throne somehow, there won't be any more assassins after you, but you'll have to rule Wutai for the rest of your life."

He looked at her calmly.

She bit her lip. "Those are some really... shitty options, Vincent."

He nodded gravely.

Then he startled her by speaking one last time, and the conviction in his voice made her almost want to cry.

"Whatever you choose... I'll be there."

She glanced up at him, moving her legs under her and putting gaze level with his, so she could look him in the eyes.

"Why, Vincent?"

He looked away.

"Vincent Valentine, look at me. I want an answer. Why are you... why am I so important to you?" It was another one of those heart in the throat moments... and she hoped he answered her before she threw up on him, she was so nervous.

His gaze returned to hers slowly, as though he feared looking at her eyes. Still, it did return. "Because I... care, about... what happens to you." He looked away. "It's been a long time since I cared about anything."

She looked away herself, and sighed. However, it wasn't a sigh of disappointment. Rather than regret what he hadn't said, Yuffie took the first tentative steps towards real maturity. 

She found hope in what he HAD said.

It was a start.

She looked up and gazed out the window, and the darkness outside, rather than oppressive, seemed full of possiblities. The rain of earlier had stopped, and all was calm, as though expectant, hushed in anticipation.

-Keep running, or go home.- She thought. It was such a hard decision. 

She looked at Vincent, who made no judgements, nor appealed to her sense of honor, or guilt... He'd simply stated the options, and left it to her. She knew, without asking him, that he wouldn't think any less of her either way. But...

With that being said, she knew, if he was in her position, which choice he'd make.

How did she know? Because he was Vincent.

Vincent, who'd nearly died saving her life not because he had to get her back to Wutai in one piece, but simply because she was Yuffie, and he... well... He was Vincent Valentine.

Because it was what he did. In spite, or maybe because of it all.

And when she thought about it that way, when she considered his words... not the options he'd laid before her, but the PROMISE he'd made... suddenly, the answer was clear to her.

It was clear, and it wasn't so bad...

Because he'd be there.

And Yuffie made a choice, just as Vincent made a choice.

After that, there was no turning back.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 


	11. Cry, Have At Thee

A/N: Sorry for the abominably long wait. My muse has been bitterly silent on Why Me for a while, and when she started up again I almost didn't want to write what she had to say. This is a very sad chapter, and unfortunately it focuses on things that most of you probably couldn't care less about. Still, I gave it some thought, and the rest of the world is moving on while the Yuffster and Vinnie come to terms with their respective destinies. Things have to be said, timelines have to be advanced. So this chapter, after the long wait you all have endured, contains no Yuffie and Vincent goodness. I apologize. I promise the next chapter will focus on our intrepid duo. For now, I hope I haven't disappointed you all too much, eh? 

In any case, on with the show.

* * *

"Did you see the frightened ones? Did you hear the falling bombs? Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?" -Pink Floyd, Goodbye Blue Sky

The city of Honshu had seen far better days.

This time of year, in days gone past, there would have been a festive feeling to the chill morning air. Despite the cold, the people of the small port city, located some fifty miles north of Wutai, would have been preparing to celebrate the new year, as dictated by the calender passed down from time immemorial by their ancestors. The celebration should have been both a thanks to Leviathan for his stewardship over the greatest of all Kingdoms, the marine bounty from his own realm they depended on for survival, and praise for the Emperor, who kept the faith with their Lord for all time.

Such was not the case this day.

The city of Honshu was filled with an air of quiet desperation, and the bright banners which cracked and snapped in the cold morning wind were not the harbringers of celebration. Rather, they were the strict, fierce martial banners of a people at war.

A civil war.

The news which trickled from the capital and of course, further south was scarse at best. The frightened people of Honshu had been plied with vastly differing rumors, of giants with hands of flame, of men who soared on demonic wings, and a hundred other fanciful tales that could not possibly be true.

Two things could be agreed upon, however. The battlelines had been drawn. The three top families, the Choshu among them, had begun calling themselves the Reconstructionists. They called for a new line of succession, indeed, for no Emperor at all. This frightened and disturbed the people, who all their lives had lived beneath the beneficent gaze of one of the Kisaragi line.

What of the Da Chao, the people wondered? What of All Creation?

No need, replied the Reconstructionists. The time of a single martial artist, indeed, of the Art itself being the equal of an army is past. A time of progress has begun. Of course they never bothered to mention what they were progressing towards, but most took no notice.

They couldn't afford to.

On the other side, a hodgepodge of poorer clans scattered and fearful, who could agree on no strategy, no counter for the Choshu led onslaught.

Loyalists, they called themselves.

Who are they loyal to, the people ask.

For the second thing the people could agree upon was this.

The Emperor was dead. His heir could not be located.

Such things were said silently though. It did not pay to stick one's neck out too far these days.

Several weeks and no word, and then, just as the people of Honshu were beginning to think that perhaps this time of troubles might pass them by, a great host arrived.

The people gathered in the streets to watch, silently taking stock of their guests.

They had seen better days.

The lacquered armor was blood and mud spattered and to a man they appeared injured, strange injuries the likes of which only the oldest among them could recall ever seeing before. Their lords, fierce in the ceremonial family armors, astride their fierce warhorses, ushered the battered group into the city. There they had begun to recuperate, and had been doing so for the last few days.

The lords set up their own tents and kept their own council. The arguments were fierce, and could be faintly heard above the din that any large armed camp created by necessity.

The men were closely watched by their officers, and so the people of Honshu were unable to gain much information about what had transpired outside their walls, but one thing they had garnered was that this was a Loyalist force, and that they had been fighting to reclaim the capital.

They had been beaten. Routed.

They had seen things which made even the youngest of them look like old men waiting to die.

Immediately officers began rounding up all able bodied men and women and pressing them into service. There was unrest at first, but after the first few harsh applications of discipline, and one very messy execution, the people gathered at the camp and were issued uniforms and spears.

And in some cases, pitchforks.

They were not, after all, expected to last long.

The enemy was on the way.

As one, the city looked to the south.

It looked without hope.

* * *

Lord Oda Katsumodo raised his gaze from the map before him and grimly surveyed the few surviving Lords who remained with him. To their credit, those who remained met his gaze unabashedly, though it was obvious that tension was taking it's toll on these hard men. Katsumodo swept his gaze across them, weighing each, and fell upon an empty seat.

The only indication of the pain, the grief he felt at the loss of his only son, was a deepening of his frown.

"I am sure all of you understand the gravity of our situation, so I will waste no time explaining how critical this moment in time is. What we lack, what will decide this conflict, is information."

He met the gaze of one of his cavalry officers, a young man named Ryu Kazegawa. The stern young man's face tightened, and he gripped the hilt of his sword fiercely. His armor showed the dust and wear of a hard ride, though the only betrayal of the exhaustion he felt were the lines upon his face and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He nodded shortly.

"Our forces have scattered to the four winds, my lord. The deaths of Lord Honda and Lord Fujita at the hands of the traitor Sung, have broken the only figures of leadership strong enough to rally our efforts. This coupled with our enemies... unorthodox tactics, have put us in severely unfavorable position"  
He looked down.

"My men attempted to force the blockade several times last night. We were... unsuccessful. The war machines the enemy uses terrify our horses, my Lord. It is my deep shame to admit, that we will be nearly useless in the coming conflict."

Lord Katsumodo shook his head. "No. Not useless. You have done much already. Rest assured, your ancestors would be proud." He sighed.

"These warmachines... where do they come from?"

The cavalry officer shook his head. "I am unsure my lord. They bear a resemblance to the machines used by Shinra, but... there is no stink of Mako about them. Despite this, there is an... unnatural animation to them. I fear..."

Lord Katsumodo raised an eyebrow. "Go on?"

The cavalry officer looked embarassed. "I do not wish to pass on information which is only speculation, but the men talk of sorcery..."

Several Lords present grumbled at this, looking at one another uneasily. Lord Katsumodo shook his head, raising a dismissing hand. "No. No talk of sorcery. Our enemy has a technological advantage, yes, but it is not dark power which guides her hand." He grinned mirthlessly. "Despite the bitches reputation for being a witch."

Uneasy chuckles all around.

"We will make our stand here. It is good ground, the sea is to our backs, and we have a steady source of food. We must hold on, until..."

He stopped.

"Until our allies to the south can rejoin with us."

"Lord... what of... what of the Lady Kisaragi?"

He scowled. "She has obviously abandoned us. I will speak no more of it."

He sadly raised his head. "The line of Kisaragi is ended. WE must continue the empire. While there is still an empire left to continue."

A messenger burst into the tent and knelt suddenly, his breath coming in great, gasping gulps.

Lord Katsumodo stood stunned for a moment, then oriented on the messenger and scowled. "What is the meaning of this?"

"My Lords... the... enemy... is here!"

Lord Katsumodo stood suddenly, gesturing with his fan. "To arms! To the last man, we will die for this land. Let traitor's blood stain the sands of Honshu!"

The officers roared in approval, and they moved as one to the tent flap, buckling on swords and strapping on helms.

Some of them, for the last time.

* * *

He ran the lint-free cloth saturated with oil carefully over the perfectly machined surface of the receiver. His dexterious, meticulous, experienced hands told him that this rifle was a masterwork, truely one of a kind. It spoke to him of hard use, but also great care.

He could almost smell the blood emanating from the wood grain of its stock, seeping like fragrant perfume from the silk-smooth worn walnut.

He picked at a stray bit of grit in the threads of the barrel, carefully easing it out of its hiding place.

He grinned quietly in satisfaction.

"Meisterwerk..."

"What does it mean, Jaeger-sama?"

He blinked, having almost forgotten he was not alone. It was sometimes easy to do that with Reiko, she made no sound unless she wanted to be heard. If one did not pay attention to her, she tended to fade into the background, which was unfortunate, for she had grown into a beautiful young woman. Too pretty, really, to be hiding in the shadows all the time.

Hence his nickname for her, Schattenblum... flower of shadow.

"Masterpiece, Schattenblum. It is unmatched, flawless."

She cocked her head slightly. He sensed that she wanted more from him than he had already given, sensed the questions behind her icy, indifferent mask. It was a talent of his. When he looked at a person, he picked up on all the subtle clues of body language, and some ineffable, invisible trace that told him what a person was thinking, or more accurately, feeling. In a profession where a hair breadth of misread intentions or a split second of indecision quickly spelled death, his sixth sense, his predatory nature... the nature of a wolf, had served him well.

Too well... at least, against all enemies but one. Time. He sighed inwardly.

He reflected silently about his slender companion. Though he was perfectly capable of working alone, he had to admit that he had gotten used to working with a partner, one who complimented him perfectly. He had not yet decided if this made him weaker or stronger.

Such things were important to him.

"Can a weapon not also be a work of art? It interests me that a man can look at a sword and see beauty, and yet look at a firearm and see only death and pain."

"Swords are symbols, Jaeger-sama. In Wutai a sword is looked upon as the soul of its owner. It is a great dishonor to lose or break one's sword."

He scowled. "Bah. No weapon at a man's side is his soul, Schattenblum. To say this is to put the responsibility of the lives taken by blade or bullet in the hands of the weapon. Men wield weapons, not the other way around."

He scratches his chin for a moment, uncharacteristically thoughtful. "What is a sword, truely, Schattenblum? It is only a length of metal... a sharp edge and a point. Whether it breaks or slays is dependant upon the skill of the wielder... it is made beautiful when it is used. By itself it is no different than a shovel or a dinner knife... a tool simply adapted for a specific purpose."

He grins slightly. "A gun is a meticulous machine..." He hold up the receiver and proceeds to put it back together. "Receiver, bolt body, bolt sleeve, ejector, barrel, firing pin spring, firing pin, extractor, bolt stop and spring, sear, sear and trigger pins, trigger..." With each word he dexterously slipped each piece back into its appointed places, his voice reverant. "Any part out of place, any flaw of form or function, and the gun will not work properly."

His grin widens. "A lady. Care for her diligently, and she will never betray you. Let dirt get between you, and she may blow up in your face."

He set the completed rifle on the log next to him, watching her from across the fire. "A man pulls the trigger, and the bullet is ejected, but hidden from his view is a dance. A dance of fire and metal, of action and reaction. What sword can say the same, eh?"

Reiko is silent for a long time, then one thin black eyebrow raises above the headband tied across her eyes. "In one breath you say weapons are soulless tools, and in the next you liken a gun to a woman. You cannot have it both ways, Jaeger-sama." She turned slightly, oriented towards him in profile.

"Unless you are somehow implying that women do not have souls?" She said archly, though still in her quiet manner.

Rather than become angry or defensive, Jaeger grinned. He held up a hand placatingly. "The older we get, Reiko, the more confused our ramblings become. Still... I did not mean to imply women and weapons have no souls... simply that a man decides himself what to do with a weapon. If a man imparts anything to a weapon, it is personality..."

She cocks her head slightly.

"Is that way you care so diligently for that rifle? You wish to impart personality to it?"

He shook his head. "No..." He patted the rifle gently. "I must admit, I am tempted. This weapon is not for me, though. Not my style, you understand. The man who uses this rifle stays distant from his enemy, from his friends. He is alleine. Eh, alone... he watches the world from a distance, where it cannot harm him. It is well named, this Death Penalty. In the hands of her master, this weapon is a sentence of death. But it is not MY way to hand out death at a distance, Reiko. I prefer my enemy to know I bested him."

He patted the rifle carefully. "Still, it is a beautiful weapon. It does not deserve to rust away on a forsaken beach in this Gott verdammt jungle."

Reiko pursed her lips slightly, then shook her head. "What are you going to do with it, then?"

His eyes glittered in the firelight. "I will keep it for a time, until I see der Schwarze Tod again. Then I will return it to him. We will see who is the better gewehr ritter."

"After that?" She asks, hesitantly.

"After that, Schattenblum, I will either not be caring, or I will take it from his dead hands as a trophy... a reminder that even death may die... to comfort me in my old age."

She turns away from him, her shoulders stiff.

"What is it?" He is mildly surprised at her reaction.

"All this talk of death, Jaeger-sama... I do not..."

He raises an eyebrow, baffled. Why this display of humanity now? It did not suit her... Best to explain himself. Best she know where they stood. He considered his words carefully, then spoke, slowly. "Life is death, Schattenblum. I have died for entirely too long. It gets... tiresome."

She kept her back to him. "You would lose intentionally? Let this Valentine end your life?"

She was attempting to get a rise out of him. Curious. Such probing questions were not her usual mode... like a flower, she tended towards quiet contemplation, observation, if you will. Since she had no eyesight to deceive her with its often flawed first impressions, she relied upon her other senses to paint her the picture, an act which necessitated patience. He took a moment to reflect upon what she said, before answering her calmly.

"Vincent Valentine was... better than I, 30 years ago. It wasn't just his... gewherspiel... gunplay, that made him better. He was ruthless. Every living soul between him and his objective was an enemy to be dispatched."

"How did this make him better?" She asked.

He frowned. "The difference between a killer and a victim is a single instant of hesitation. The mind questions the course of action which leads to the taking of another's life. A conscious decision is made to kill when the question is rationalized, in that instant, that death is necessary."

"A victim can kill if provoked, but he will always hesitate, he will always question, rationalize. A killer requires no rationalization, because the decision in his case is reversed."

"The question for a killer is not, should I end this life. The question is..."

She turned back to him, muted realization on her face. "Should I let this life continue?" She whispered quietly.

He blinked, his eyes full of satisfaction. Of course she would understand. "The moment of hesitation for a killer comes when there is an emotional tie to a situation which causes him to question whether death is the answer this time. Vincent, for whatever reason, was an emotionless, serene blank of a man, the closest to a pure machine, to an instinctive, predatory beast, as I have ever seen. Every action was planned out and accounted for in advance, every motion effortless and wasteless. He was unbeatable."

"Some would say that made him a sociopath, Jaeger." She mused.

He snorted. "Of course he was. Sociopath. A label for a person who is disconnected from and unmindful of societal mores. Vincent had no need for society. He fulfilled a role required of him by Shinra. In a way, society needed him."

She frowned. "Yet... you use the past tense to describe him this way."

Jaeger looked away, thoughtful. "He was better than me, Reiko. He has changed. The man he is now... hesitates. He is still a killer, a killer will never stop being a killer, but he is a killer with... a connection. I have spent the better part of my life since his disappearance paring away my imperfections... striving to become the man he was. Time is catching up to me... my skills are diminishing with each passing day." He flexed his fingers, staring at them as though they had betrayed him.

He let his hands fall to his lap, turning to Reiko quietly. "My fight with Vincent is the culmination of my life's work, Reiko. Have I become der Schwartze Tod? Have I transcended death- become it? There is only one yardstick to measure myself against, Reiko. If I beat him, then I can die knowing that I am more than just a passingly skilled killer."

"If he beats me... well, then it doesn't matter anymore."

She stared at him, her expression unreadable, even for him. For a moment he wondered what she was thinking, what his words had meant to her. Then he mentally shook himself from such thoughts. It shouldn't matter, what she thought.

It shouldn't matter at all.

"I... hope you beat him, Jaeger-sama." She said quietly.

He did not answer. Her hopes for him troubled him somehow, on a deep, subconscious level. He mused about this silently.

After a moment's contemplation brought him no closer to a satisfactory answer, he changed the subject, poking at the fire with a stick.

"Our next move is simple, Schattenblum. We don't need to chase Vincent and his ninja girl across the verdammt continent, not when we know where they will head next."

She cocked her head. "Wutai?"

He grinned. "Vincent will realize that eventually her enemies will catch up with her. He will realize that only by confronting the source of her problems is there a possiblity of survival. So they will travel to Wutai, but not by boat. He will discover that ships are no longer being allowed to dock at any Wutanese ports. That being said, there is only one other option for him."

She raised an eyebrow. "An airship?"

He nodded, his smile gleaming golden in the firelight. His eyes held a trace of that glimmer as well. "Of which there are precious few still operational."

"The Highwind?"

He nodded. "Rocket town. We will confront them there. First, however, there is the matter of traveling expenses."

She checked her sheathed katana, a slight smile creasing her otherwise impassive countenance. Her voice had an air of causual indifference that was belied by the eager set of her features.

"The local township has issued an... impressive bounty for a certain group of bandits operating in the local area. If we backtrack the trail of broken underbrush those large lizards made back to their source..."

She was quick, and her thoughts mirrored his with uncanny regularity. He loved that about her. "I think it is about time for a bit of law and order to return to the jungle, ja, Schattenblum?"

"I was just thinking that very thing, Jaeger-sama."

* * *

It did no good to reflect, when one was placed in such a position, but facing almost certain death, Mae found that she couldn't help it. The wide brimmed, shallow helmet, if it could be called a helmet, had, in a previous life been used to keep the sun from her head and shoulders while toiling in the rice fields.

Now it was supposed to stop the bullets and arrows of a determined enemy.

If she wasn't scared to death, she might have found this humorous.

These people around her, she knew them all. She had grown up with them, toiled in the fields with them, gossiped and fished and occasionally argued with them. She was 19 years old... and remarkable only in that she was unmarried yet.

War had changed her so suddenly, changed the people around her so suddenly, that she was still very much in shock at all. The surreal quality lent to the scene... watching as Takai, a thirty year old fisherman who'd never held a weapon in his life, lean wearily against his spear, uncomfortable in his poorly fitted armor... of young Yoko Saito, just barely out of her girlish braids, now staring about her with a look of confused, barely concealed panic, her own spear clutched awkwardly in front of her.

It was all just too much.

The air smelt of fear and tension, and horses nearby whickered uneasily at the unpleasant mixture. She craned her head around, searching for the beasts... there. A young, fierce looking officer in his armor talked quietly to another, older man, before the older individual turned and barked orders. An answering shout, and like magic the horses began to line up, the officer at their head. He turned in her direction, his eyes sweeping over her ragtag conscript unit, over her, in an instant. A trick of the distance made his eyes seem to meet hers for a moment, before he turned and joined his unit.

-He's so young...- She thought, startled. -His eyes seem so old... what has he seen?-

She had a feeling she would find out soon.

Of course they were all scared. One would have to be insane not to be. The life of a villager was one of quiet, subservient obediance. In exchange for this deference, they received protection, security; safety. The world had been turned upon its ear, then... for they had been rounded up, men and women alike, and hastily thrust into units, drilled until they knew which end of the spear was which (barely) and how to march in a passable formation, (occasionally) then apparently forgotten.

Until now, that is.

No one knew what was going on. Not even Sakamoto, the older fishermen who had been selected to serve as their Sergeant; courtesy of some time spent in his youth in the militia. Now her unit was currently at the dead center of a sea of chaos, as the other, more experienced units swirled around them, preparing for the coming battle. Her eye found the calm in the storm again. The young officer. His armor was differently colored and the penant which snapped at the end of his lance identified him of the Kazegawa clan. He brought his horse close to where her unit waited, crouched around the camp fires. Sakamoto stood up suddenly, his helmet nearly falling off his bald head.

"Sir?" Sakamoto started, once he had settled himself.

The officer was silent for a long time, considering them carefully, then he seemed to come to a decision.

"Sergeant, get these people ready to move. The enemy will be here soon."

Startled whispers popped up like mushrooms. Sakamoto cleared his throat, then sighed.

The officer raised his hand a moment, looking them over again, as though seeing them the first time.

"Men... and women... this is not the way I would have liked this to turn out." He sighed, then looked down, quiet for a long time. Then his face hardened. "We aren't fighting for a cause, or property. We are fighting for a way of life. Our people have lived the same way for thousands of years. We spoke oaths to Leviathan that it would be so."

"Yuki Choshu and her ilk have betrayed our Emperor, his family, and our way of life. They use the same tactics that our great enemies, Shinra used. We stood up to them, and pushed them away from our lands, without dirtying ourselves with their cheap and cowardly methods of fighting. Now Shinra is no more... and Wutai still lives on. We will weather this storm. It is upon us all."

He sighed.

"I know that you are scared. I know that none of you understands why you must fight. With that being said, I assure you, out there..." He pointed towards the horizon, away from the sea. "Is your enemy. He will come here, and he will show no mercy. Your only chance for survival is to kill him. To drive him back."

Mae reflected on this. She didn't understand what he meant by defending a way of life... surely this was all there was to life, surely... this life couldn't be taken away from them, short of killing them? She felt a flicker of sympathy for him... he was a soldier, this terror they felt now was a common part of his life... and now he had to reassure them, bolster their fighting spirit.

He was obviously tired, and yet he took a moment to TRY.

Even though it was obvious his words had not fully reached her people... she felt gratitude towards him for trying.

Sakamoto faced them grimly. "FOOOORRM... RANKS!"

They scrambled to comply, the discipline recently ingrained in them erasing all conscious thought.

Mae found herself on the front rank, next to Yoko and Takai. On the horizon, dark shapes could be made out... a mass of figures rigid in their discipline.

They didn't look... human.

A runner caught the young Kazegawa's attention, and with a last regretful glance, he wheeled his horse and joined the cavalry unit.

Sakamoto called out the orders. "1st Militia! Open ranks... MARCH!"

They spread out, forming lines.

"FORWARD, MARCH!"

They moved. A forest of spears.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ryu Kazegawa drew his sword, as did the other cavalry men. He looked at Lord Katsumodo, those poor militia spearmen between him and his lord. He had argued the effectiveness of using the militia as a homeguard, but really, what else were they good for? They'd surely break at the first sign of battle... there was just no helping it.

One thing was certain. He and his men would not be there to see them break.

They were to swing wide, try to hit the enemies flank. Ryu shook his head at the uselessness of it all. He and his men had tried to circle around the net of steel, tried to force their way through the blockade, but had been thrown back.

Now the jaws of the trap were snapping shut.

A sudden whining hiss filled his ears and the screams of men and horses soon followed. Ryu gasped at the sudden carnage, as the unit to his left seemed to explode, raining ragdoll figures who screamed and bled. His eyes turned skyward as the strange, V-shaped craft circled about, coming around for another pass. He gritted his teeth and pointed his sword forward.

"CHARGE!""

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A thunder of hooves and the young officer's unit started forward as though stung, racing towards the distant enemy. Another whining hiss, and one of the outbuildings owned by the farmers exploded, raining fiery debris. Half of Mae's unit dropped their spears and ran screaming for the town, Mae herself did not only because she was so dazed at the suddenness of it that she couldn't move.

Another whine/hiss, and another, then another... Leviathan what's making that noise!

Sakamoto screamed out an order. Those that were still in formation pushed forward, moving at a trot and Mae found herself moving with them rather than be trampled. Those who had run found the town was no sanctuary, as fire and debris errupted in a deadly cloud of terror.

The unit to her left was a cavalry unit led by Lord Katsumodo. He kept pace with them, their own spears leveled forward. The lines of the enemy got larger... ever larger.

Her heart beat so fast she felt as though it might explode. The enemy wore black armor, and carried strange sticklike contraptions that looked like guns... but no guns she'd ever seen. The front rank of the black armored troops dropped to a knee and pointed their weapons at Lord Katsumodo's unit, the other ranks pointed their weapons in the same direction but did not kneel. Lord Katsumodo ordered a charge.

The Lord's unit snapped forward as though shot from a cannon, screaming and snarling in the face of their enemies, spears leveled for the kill. Lord Katsumodo was familiar with their enemies tactics... his losses would be grievous, but all he had to do was hit them and they were his.

The enemy officer barked an order...

Lord Katsumodo's unit pressed forward.

Mae watched as the cavalry drew closer and closer, her own unit some way back...

Fire filled the air suddenly.

The weapons of their enemies glowed crimson for a moment, and then in eerie silence pinpoints of orange flame shot out towards Lord Katsumodo's unit. The small balls of flame passed through the first rank of Lord Katsumodo's unit. Men collapsed soundlessly, charred holes appearing where they pinpoints of flame passed. The next rank also collapsed bonelessly the pinpoints continued through the first and into the second.

As they reached the third rank, they exploded.

It was as though the sound had been turned off in the world for a second, save the surprised grunts and screams of impact, and then suddenly the world was clap of thunder. Mae watched in horror as men and horses, and bits and pieces of men and horses, some of them flailing and on fire, shot high up into the air. The cavalry unit scattered the four winds, some of the panicked horses trampling surprised men of Mae's own unit before they collapsed.

The enemy stood up silently, the officer spoke another word of command, and they began to reload.

Then with a scream of rage and triumph, Ryu's unit came out of nowhere, hitting them from the right flank.

* * *

Ryu watched in horror as Lord Katsumodo's unit turned to so much roasted and abused meat. Ryu had lost sight of his lord in the first few moments of that conflaguration, but by then all thoughts of his lord were put aside for more immediate concerns. The lord's demise had bought his own unit the time they needed to circle to the right, and with a shout of anger and anticipation they rode down on their enemy in a thundering ton of horseflesh and scything swords. Sheer momentum carried them half way through the enemy unit, men screaming and dying, trampled beneath them, then they found themselves in a swirling melee. Ryu hacked and slashed with abandon, rational thought gone, replaced with sheer animal instinct and battle training.

The finely ordered ranks on both sides became a swirling, chaotic mass of the dead and those who dealt it, switching roles, reversing, pleading, screaming for mercy, or screaming out hatred. Weapons fell and clattered, those strange rifle-like contraptions spit their deadly fire, and the fight went on.

A sudden clicking noise caught his attention and some nameless instinct tore his eyes to the left. They widened in horror and shock.

Another unit of those black armored troopers had wheeled onto the flank of the melee amidst the scattered ruins of Lord Katsumodo's unit and were in their deadly tiered formation, weapons pointed-

-They're firing at their own TROOPS!- That stunned and panicked thought went through his head just as the weapons went off.

The world disappeared in orange and crimon hell.

* * *

"Mama..."

"Mama..."

Yoko's voice was thick with terror and pain. She looked up at Mae with disbelieving, confused eyes, the blood coming thick from her ears, nose, and mouth, and the gaping hole of raw red meat that used to be her left eye. The ringing in Mae's ears still had disappeared... she found herself focusing on that young, terror struck face, terrible fascination in a face that had been pretty but was no longer.

Sakamoto screamed loudly and hoarsely, his hands clenched around ragged bleeding wound in his stomach, vainly trying to keep his own guts in place. The smell of blood, of shit, of terror and pain was a thick effluvial mass on the scattered unit.

Mae glanced about her dazedly, still unsure as to what had hit them. One moment they had been charging forward in a terror striken clump, the next a sound like a thousand drums shattering had errupted in the middle of them, and they'd fallen down like so many children's dolls scattered by a careless hand. The battlefield was oddly muted, that damnable ringing tone like a sword struck with a hammer at an odd angle buzzing in her head, erasing thought.

In a daze she looked down at Yoko and realized that the girl had gone still, her one good eye unfocused, a look of dreamy contentment frozen forever on her features.

A roaring filled her ears now.

She stood dazedly, casting about herself in a daze and stumbling over the bodies of the fallen, searching. Finally she found a spear that wasn't hers and turned to the black armored enemy in the distance, advancing on the battered and destroyed unit of horse that Lord Katsumodo had led earlier. These demons... these enemies, they were here to kill them. As strange as it seemed, as unpleasntly comical as that seemed, she realized that only now. It hadn't seemed real before, a joke, surely. These were not men. They were animals, slaughtering, careless, cold, implicable animals.

Mae had dealt with animals gone mad and cruel before. They all had. You didn't live outside of the protection of stone walls in the cruel unforgiving world that was Wutai's undeveloped wilderness without occasionally dealing with its predators.

A few stumbling and dazed looking members of her unit watched her focus drunkenly on the enemy and start forward. Some nameless, herd-like instinct, or perhaps a sullen cry for vengeance from a people who had endured wars and terror before, a people who had endured sadness and the bleak and thankless lot that a peasant faces every day spurred them to follow.

One then two, then a dozen, then two dozen started forward, following that stumbling, pathetically tattered, bloodied girl, the hair half burned from her head by the searing heat of cannon fire.

The stumble became a run. The others followed, a ragged mob of stunned looking peasants.

She lowered the spear and a cry left her, a cry of hatred and fear, and loss... most of all, loss. How dare they come here with their foul technology and spend mens lives like coin?

The black armored unit was caught almost completely by surprise.

Almost.

A spark tugged at Mae's arm, slicing open her shoulder and cauterizing the wound instantly in a sizzle of burnt flesh. The man behind her dropped bonelessly, a smoking ruin for a face, his skull splitting under the pressure of the heat that filled it. Others fell, others died. Not many, fortunately.

And not her.

Her spear jolted into an armored chest and sank deep. The helmet focused on her face, and then she ripped the spear loose savagely, planted her sandal on the man's chest and pushed him to the ground, then stabbed him again.

And again.

She couldn't hear her own scream.

She fought like a mad thing, they all did, savaging and tearing into their enemy with suicidal abandon, stumbling and weaving over the bodies of the fallen. She swung her spear like a club, catching a man at the knees and knocking him stumbling to the ground, then reversed her swing and planted the butt of it into his visored face. The visor shattered, broken pieces stabbing into his eyes and face like cruel knives. He clutched his ruined face with black gloved hands and screaming shrilly, like a rabbit that had been caught in a trap. She stepped past him and snarled, laying about her with more fury than skill.

Someone behind her put the moaning soldier she left out of his misery.

A lacquer gloved hand caught her sandal and tugged weakly, and she snarled down, preparing to strike. An old, war weary gaze looked up at her and she squinted.

"Ayah... little wolverine. Slow down... you must gather the..." Lord Katsumodo grunted, a rivulet of blood oozing over his lower lip. The horse lying dead and blackened on his lower body and part of his chest restricted his breathing, making each word like a knife stabbed into his lungs.

"Let go of me." Mae said, her tone low and menacing as a 19 year old girl can produce.

His grip strengthened. "NO... You MUST... rally your troops. You must... pull them into a cohesive team, or you will be surrounded and slaughtered!"

"They are not mine, old man."

"They ARE... NOW! You are... responsible for them! Don't you see? They follow..." He coughed.

She looked up. Some of them were still fighting, but some had stopped to look at her, confused and unsure now that she had stopped her manic charge. Some of these were cut down, and became shrieking, squirming figures looking at her in pain and anguish.

Her heart constricted. She tore free of his grip and raised her spear high, shouting half remembered commands from their pitiful and half completed training.

"FOOOOORM UUUUUUP!" She shouted.

It took several heartrending moments, but a small knot of troops gathered around her, some of them not even peasants. Some of them were bloodied and half dead cavalry officers, swords held grimly in shaking hands. Not a single one of them was whole... most of them had smoking or charred wounds.

"COMPANNNY! SPEARS TO THE LEVEL!"

They did what they could. It was a pitiful show.

"ADVANCE!"

Mae learned a valuable lesson then.

Killing was easier when you moved as a mob.

* * *

He had lost his helmet somewhere. The left side of his face felt shiny and tight, a mass of painful, burned flesh. His eye had swollen shut.

Somehow he clung to his horse and his sword. The men he'd led... brave men all of them... they were not so lucky.

The blasts had torn through them like hot, merciless knives, falling upon horseman and black clad trooper alike. Ryu also learned a lesson that day.

All men scream and bleed alike.

As suddenly as it had struck it ended. Some chaotic mass, probably the remnants of Lord Katsumodo's unit, had struck the formation from the rear, and they had turned their attention behind them. Ryu fought for control of his panicked mount and succeeded after several cursing, wasted moments, turning the half burned horse back towards that unit. He clipped them along their edges, his sword parting black armor and flesh with equal ease, but their attention was on the attacker savaging them to the rear, and the few men he was able to deal with went largely unnoticed.

He fought through them, fighting to reach his Lord's side.

What he saw was so completely unexpected, he dropped his horse's reins and spent several seconds picking them back up.

A girl, burned and battered, and a few peasants and soldiers, a knot at the center of the chaotic mass of flesh that roiled and tore at itself. Slightly behind her, Lord Katsumodo lie, shouting encouragement and commands to her from beneath his fallen mount. From the greyness of his face and the way blood leaked freely from his mouth, he was grievously wounded.

He rode close, slicing down men left and right. His mount reared up and battered at them with its hooves, shattering limbs and black helmets with equal abandon.

Still, the press of black clad flesh was too great. Slowly the small, battered unit was forced backward.

He gritted his teeth and cast aside his humanity, becoming a demon of war.

* * *

That weak, palsied hand on her ankle again. She set her stance and leveled her spear forward, gritting her teeth.

"What is it this time, old man?"

"Child... girl... what... w-... what is your name?"

She battered down another, the blood splashing across her cheek and burning in the cuts and wounds of her shoulder. She scowled.

"I have no name."

"Very... w- well, nameless girl. T- the field is lost... t- take this... take IT!"

She glanced downward, and the other palsied hand held up a stone that glimmered with faint light, almost alive. She scowled.

"I don't have time for this old-"

"DO AS I SAY!" He grunted, hoarse with the effort. "Take it... and..."

He looked past her, recognition on his face. "Ryu... thank... Leviathan. T-take the girl... guard her and the stone... our lord's... Materia... must not fall into enemy hands..."

"Lord... I-"

"None of your DAMNABLE FATALISTIC LOYALTY, BOY! DAMN YOUR HONOR! I COMMAND YOU TO DO THIS THING! LIVE, CURSE YOU!" The old man shuddered oddly, his head lolling on his neck.

Mae took the stone slowly, scowling at him. "What is this thing? It is-"

A strong arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her up as a man might lift a child. She dropped her spear in surprise and then fought like a wildcat, swinging her fists around blindly.

"Argh... Damn it woman! We have to-"

"Let GO OF-"A strong hand clipped her upside the head and she sank, stunned, a feeble growl on her lips.

"We have to go! Lord Katsumodo..." Ryu closed his eyes for a moment. "My Lord commands it." He looked back at the old man, shaking with the last few moments of life.

"Let... go of me... my people... we can't... leave..." She fought feebly still, but she fought.

He scowled, wheeling the horse away from the tide of black armor that threatened them. "Your men are dead! We have to go!"

"I can't."

"Fah! No time!" He dug his heels into the horse's side and it leapt forward, startled. Trampling its way through the field of black, it picked its way almost daintily through the field of bodies, then broke into a startled gallop as it hit relatively open ground.

She cried then, small fists pounding on his armored chest. His good eye narrowed at her in shared pain.

Shots flew their way now, and he turned his attention to their flight, weaving around the blasts skillfully. They became a speck in the distance.

Honshu smoldered sullenly in the distance, what remained of her people who remained cowering against the shores of the sea, wailing for the innocence which had been lost.

Lord Katsumodo, old soldier, closed his eyes wearily one last time and rested, his last thoughts of his son.


	12. Seeing Eye to Eye

A/N: So here we go again. It's been awhile folks, but hell... it's not like I've been exactly idle. A lot has happened to me since the last update, too much to get into really, but to sum it up, let's just say getting OUT is alot harder than getting INTO the military. Transitions, transitions, transitions.

The original chapter 12 I'd written was on my laptop, which I had to pack with my stuff for shipment. Since that shipment STILL isn't here, I finally said screw it and started rewriting the chapter. 

I think... it came out better. It certainly came out alot different.

This chapter didn't exactly move the plot forward, at least, not where world events are concerned. What I realized after some soul searching (and several very indignant reviews to get my ass in gear. You know who you are.) Is that my style of writing is extremely character driven, and that I needed to let the characters tell the story. Give them a voice, if you will. What came out is either some of my best work, or some of my worst work. A person can't really judge their own work, I think. Not objectively. Sometimes, you just have to ignore that little critic in your head that tells you you have no business writing, and just give yourself permission to write the biggest pile of shit anyone has ever written.

The world will not end.

I don't THINK Yuffie or Vincent is out of character. The more I analyzed Yuffie, the more I realized that she had grown quite a bit during the course of this story. Her and Vincent have been in a lot of shit together, and frankly if she wants things to change, she's going to have to change them. Without giving the chapter away... well... just read it, and judge for yourself. I make no apologies. Like it or not, it's what I have to offer.

And I might mention, even the world's biggest pile of shit will occasionally sprout a rose or two.

Before you ask, I also had to pack my Playstation 2, so I haven't had an opportunity to play Dirge of Cerberus. Pardon me whilst I weep.

Two more little points I'd like to address. Someone pointed out that horses are never used in the Final Fantasy 7 world. I reply that it is not categorically stated that horses CAN'T exist, merely that they aren't commonly used. Some of the Materia summons do, in fact, have horses as I recall. Chocobo would be next to useless in a cavalry situation, because they don't weigh enough to trample, and they don't strike me as herd animals. They are, however, alot cheaper to feed, and a helluva lot hardier than horses are. They can also travel a greater variety of terrain. All of the horses portrayed in the story were ridden by noblemen, who have the time, money, and land to care for expensive, finicky animals. I don't see this as a full out break of canon, merely an exercise of creative license. If horses in Final Fantasy 7 is so much of a heresy that it makes you unable to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the story, I am sorry. I also wonder why horses break it but a meat cleaver the size of a small moon wielded like a butter knife doesn't raise an issue, but then, I'm funny that way.

The second point is about Materia. The mechanics and physics of Final Fantasy are geared towards enjoyment, challenge, playability, and oooh and awe factor. To make battle less boring, the effects used are completely spectacular and awe inspiringly pretty.

They are also rigoddamndiculous. Say it with me... Ri. God damned. Dic. U. Lous. HOW MANY TIMES does Sepiroth destroy the solar system during that fight? Right. 

The reason being that the effects were intended to be less cinematic, and more animatic. My interpretation is as follows. Most of the fights that occurred in final fantasy 7 are objective, and most of the damage done is interpretive. As you may have noticed, characters didn't "die" in the game, they were knocked out. When Aeris died, they didn't throw a pheonix down on her to bring her back, she was dead. So I have to assume the damage done in battles is interpretive, and the actual fight is more physical, with the Materia lending strength in smaller ways than displayed. Cure materia cannot fix injuries, but they can rejuvenate and reduce pain. Pheonix down are like smelling salts on steroids.

Again, this is done to prevent the head ache and stupidity of describing every goddamn summoning and materia effect the game has to offer. Frankly, I don't CARE about the mechanics of the world, I care about the story being told, and I have continued that practice here.

Sorry if that bugs you, again... I had to make a judgement call here. So I did.

With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy it. So, on with the show.  
----------------------------------------------------

"It hasn't quite hit me yet, I know it will. They say when it rains it pours, I'm savin' for something I can't afford. All I see is me and you, eyes of pain hidden by blue. All I know is all I see... a part of me. It's over now, it's over... for now. Self inflicted, I'm addicted. All I see is me and you, eyes of pain hidden by blue. All I know is all I see... a part of me." -Blue, Anarchy Club

----------------------------------------------------

A sudden shock of sound echoed across the morning sky. From a distance it sounded vaguely like a crack of thunder in the beginnings of a summer storm, so much so, in fact, that most of wildlife didn't even react much, since this area was prone to such things. Overall, the droning of a thousand thousand insects that reigned unobtrusively in this diverse environment was far louder anyway, and that had been background noise for so long that it faded from conscious hearing.

The air was still, almost expectant, and then it came, another crack of sound breaking the routine of the morning. Again, the local wildlife was used to such noises. No birds scattered haphazardly from their rousts, no larger mammals loped away from perceived danger.

Yuffie opened one bleary eye, not entirely sure what had woken her, and moved quietly with a sudden intake of breath. That one baleful eye searched around quietly, found nothing out of the ordinary, and closed blissfully.

The noise came again, and this time she groaned, sat up crosslegged, her hair in an almost willful state of absolute disarray. She groaned loudly, arched her back in a voluminous stretch (fanboys, avert your eyes) and muzzily mumbled something to the effect of, "Mazer megfiltiblin."

This bit of waking teenaged philosophy out of the way, she scratched her side, yawned, and eyed her pillow with the wistful longing of a young woman who has very low blood pressure in the morning and for whom wakefulness should arrive promptly at some time after noon, bringing with it a belated breakfast, coffee, and perhaps a pair of slippers. 

At least, if it knew what was good for it, stupid wakefulness.

The sound which had inadvertantly roused her was repeated, echoing in the distance. She stopped, cocked her head as though listening, an expression of slight concentration on her features. Her eyes were closed, which was perhaps a poor management decision, because doing so caused her start slowly leaning backwards in an ever impressive display gravity defiance. Half asleep, her balance took a perhaps not so well deserved vacation, and as anyone who has attempted to do so will testify, leaning haphazardly in a metal frame cot is not the best idea.

She promptly tipped over backwards, and reality crowded in with expectant glee as adrenaline flooded her system, bringing with it a vivifying shot of blood to her sleepy brain. She yelped in what would have been a very cute manner, and flopped in what would also have been a very cute, if somewhat undignified, manner.

Fortunately for her, the cot had been very close to the CTTF(Couch That Time Forgot), and instead of introducing the back of her head to the cold, unforgiving floor (which would have been a most unsatisfactory encounter for either party concerned, considering the general hardness of skull and floor respectively) she instead sank several inches into an ugly, comfortable couch that smelled of Chocobo distress. Considering what Chocobos tended to do when distressed, this caused Yuffie to seek an upright position with undue haste.

Then the emptiness of the couch caught her attention, and she looked around confusedly. Vincent had stubbornly refused to be treated like an invalid, besides his rather miraculous position still among the living, which really pissed Yuffie off, because she had wanted to baby him with a decidedly embarassing amount of nurturistic glee. Vincent, in his passive-not-so-aggressive way, wasn't having any of that, although after nearly missing several close encounters of the third kind with the aforementioned floor, and a MOAB (Mother of All Bitchouts) from Dr. Teresa which had all the effect of a bb gun against a concrete wall, he had grudgingly (in his silent, somewhat disapproving way) allowed for a period of rest, though he (quietly) insisted that the period take place on the couch, which was in fact, actually too small for him. 

Yuffie might have protested this, but she was caught in an unfair position of having to argue against Vincent sleeping (as I mentioned before, he didn't actually sleep, but he could fake it remarkably well) in a remarkably cute cat-like curl approximately ONE FOOT FROM HER OWN SLEEPING PLACE, and her hormones had gotten the better of her judgement.

Faced with such vicious opposition, Teresa had grudgingly allowed this, but only after having had it snidely pointed out to her by Yuffie that smoking near a patient who had been shot in the lung was probably not the healthiest of practices either. Teresa was willing to sacrifice many things, her white sticks of lovely nutritious nicotine were not one of them.

A compromise was reached. Cigarettes for couch.

Which didn't exactly help, if the pernicious bastard wasn't actually ON the gods bedamned couch.

She scowled, and her eyes took in the evidence before her. The covers and sheet he used had been meticulously folded, and a tangle of crusted, bloody bandages had been disposed of discretely in the waste bin next to the couch. Atop the small waiting table was a capped, slightly used bottle of disinfectant, a small tin medical kit with the lid still open, and a half used roll of medicated bandages.

She also noted that Vincent's boots were missing, along with, ominously, his revolver.

Another crack of mysteriously familiar thunder echoed out.

"Is he INSANE?" She exclaimed to the skies above.

Said bit of scenery's subsequent silence was telling.

She stood up suddenly and picked up a borrowed fuzzy robe, thrusting her arms into it sullenly and muttering to herself. She had gotten into the habit of removing her clothing and changing into another borrowed item, a nice little pale white nightie. Since it had actually evoked a reaction from her stoic companion when she'd tried it, she continued the practice.

Even if said reaction en toto was the stern raising of one eyebrow and a pregnant "..."

Picking her way across the grassy field, with its stickers and various small rocks made her regret not putting on her sneakers, at least. Thoughts of Vincent doing something that might put his healing body under undue stress made thoughts of her own comfort take a sideline, however.

Damn, she had it bad.

She found him, and for a moment she had to stop and stare. She couldn't help it. He'd found an old white dress shirt, removed one of the sleeves for it, and had in his characteristically neat manner, tucked this into his black slacks. An empty leather holster rested on his left side. Seemingly unaffected by the muggy summer morning, he stood in a classic one handed shooters stance, gleaming metal hand clasped behind him, feet at a forty five degree angle, arm, wrist, and revolver in a graceful line pointed toward the targets. The targets in question were several empty medicine bottles set up on the wooden fence posts, very small ones, like the sort used for filling perscriptions.

His only concession to the heat was the transferance of his headband to his pocket, and a small black ribbon tying back his hair. He looked surprisingly elegant, like a nobleman from ancient times preparing to fight a duel.

The revolver cracked again, and one of the perscription bottles exploded in a shower of tiny plastic shards. He slowly lowered his arm, smoke curling sullenly from the barrel, and turned his head to the side, staring at her with one impassive red eye.

"Are you fucking nuts?" She demanded crossly, legs akimbo, her hands planted sullenly on her hips. A lock of hair dipped toward one eye and she blew it out of her face irritably. It might be time for a hair cut again.

He turned slightly and cracked the revolver open with one flick of his wrist, the shells popping out automatically as he did so. Reaching casually into his pocket, he removed a speed loader and pushed the shells into place, dropping the speedloader into his pocket, he snapped the revolver closed.

She scowled. "Well?"

"You're awake." He noted dryly in an offhand manner.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out, and opened her eyes. He had turned around and was taking aim on the perscription bottles again.

"Damn it Vincent, will you stop being an idiot?" She thundered advancing on him.

His answer was a crack of thunder. The perscription bottle wobbled and fell off the post. He frowned, adjusted his aim a hair, and blew it apart before it hit the ground.

Her scowl deepened.

He took no notice, he simply aimed at the next bottle.

She snapped.

"Stop it, you ass!" She grabbed his arm and pulled down hard.

He winced at the sudden unexpected pressure on his wounded shoulder and involuntarily dropped the revolver, which hit the ground and went off with a loud bang. One of the posts exploded at its base, and the fenceline wasn't quite enough to support its weight. The fence sagged slowly in that spot. She stared at it, her eyes little pinpricks from surprise.

"Whoa..."

He rounded on her grabbed her arm with his golden claw, staring at her intently. She froze and stared up at him, captivated.

"Never, EVER, do that again." He hissed intensely.

"Don't put me in a position where I have to do it again." She countered fiercely.

He stared at her intently, his expression on the verge of something dark. She should have been frightened. Vincent didn't display his emotions outwardly like this. Not ever. Strangely, she was exhilerated by it. She'd finally evoked something in him.

She stared at him intently, not backing down. "You're hurting me, Vincent." She said calmly.

His eyes flicked to her arm, where the sharp points of his golden claws had penetrated the robe and the nightie, drawing several small, widening spots of crimson. He released her arm suddenly, his expression hollow. He bent down and picked up the revolver, spun the cylinder to the now empty, safe chamber, then holstered it in one smooth motion.

With his face down, focused on picking up his empty brass shells, he paused.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly.

She sighed. "I know it was dangerous jarring your shooting arm like that, Vinnie. I'm sorry I hurt your arm, but doesn't it seem more than a little obsessive to be out here practicing when you've only risen from your near deathbed THREE DAYS ago?"

He finished picking up the shells, and stood gracefully, pocketing the small bits of metal.

"No." He said cooly.

"Well it is-" She started.

"No, it isn't." He interrupted calmly. "You've decided on a course of action, and I'm holding you back from that. The longer you wait for me to heal, the longer the resistance in Wutai is without a symbol to fight for. More people die, and the opposition will get more and more entrenched."

She lost her cross expression. She hadn't been expecting a rebuttal quite so eloquent, or you know, at all, and that stopped her short.

He closed his eyes. "Jaeger is out there somewhere, don't think for a minute that he's given up. I will have to deal with him, eventually. If it were just him, I'd simply leave... that would draw him away from you. It's not however, he's got that girl with him, so the only chance you have is for me to be ready, competant, and attentive."

She shivered. If there was anyone who could go toe to toe with Vincent, it was Jaeger. The strangely accented psychopath was frighteningly competent, and that blind shadow that followed his orders was so skilled it was unreal.

"You'd leave me to keep me safe?" She whispered.

He opened one eye and looked at her directly. "If you weren't in so much danger, I'd have left you already."

That hurt. She winced and turned fiercely towards the hospice, throwing up her hands. "That much of an annoyance, huh? Thanks, Vinnie, you really know how to make a girl feel wanted!"

He followed her quietly, a large, looming, thin, pale ghost drifting along with her. A hand touched her shoulder. She stopped, completely floored by this unexpected human contact.

"I didn't mean it, that way." He said quietly, his hand dropping down to his side when she stopped.

She frowned and turned, looking up at him. "How did you mean it, then? How else was I SUPPOSED to take that, Vincent?"

He stared down at her. "You asked me if I'd leave you to keep you safe." He answered.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I would." He finished.

"You don't frighten me, Vincent." She answered calmly.

He frowned. "I know." 

His eyes flicked to the spots of red on her arm.

He turned and started back towards the house. "That's what worries me."

"Vincent wait, stop... I want to talk about this." She called after him.

He didn't stop.

She followed him inside the Hospice, and it was much cooler. He paused oddly at the door way and wobbled slightly, before leaning against the doorway. She shook her head, but said nothing.

He breathed heavily for a few moments, then turned his head and looked at her.

"You're spotting." She said quietly, pointing to his side.

He looked down at the tiny spots of red dotting his shirt. He looked back at her, still breathing hard.

"So... are you." He said, looking at chest.

She looked down and realized that sweat had plastered her nightie against her unbound breasts quite revealingly. She immediately pulled her robe over them and tied it, blushing fiercely.

"You Perv!" She muttered, embarassed.

He blinked slowly. "I'm not the one wearing the nearly see through nightie."

"It gets hot at night!" She said, a tad defensively.

He raised an eyebrow, then pointedly turned and walked to the couch, sitting a trifle heavily on the far side.

She sat down next to him, grumbling. "Well it does..."

He slowly began to shrug off his shirt, grimacing as he did so. In another time, this would have sent her into the other room, blushing fiercely. However, she'd gotten used to the reality of his injuries, and the semi-nakedness that sometimes required, and instead she transferred herself to just behind him, seated on the back of the couch, her legs on either side of him before he could protest. She grasped the sleeve quietly.

"Let me help you, before you tear something open." She said patiently.

He eyed her in what might have been considered suspicious, if he wasn't so deadpan, then lowered his arm and let her begin to help him with his shirt. The wound on his shoulder had bled only a small amount, not even penetrating the shirt, but the exit wound in his side was a large damp spot.

She clucked seriously. "I hope you didn't pop a stitch again. Teresa'll skin you alive if she has to sew you up again, Scarecrow."

Vincent sighed quietly. He didn't voice it, but she knew that Teresa's strident fury at his repeated patient offenses severely irritated him.

"She wouldn't yell at you if you'd give yourself time to heal." She mused. The shirt came off his back easily but stuck to his side for a moment and he winced when she deftly pulled it loose. She placed it next to him on the couch. He was hunched forward, avoiding her bare thighs studiously. She grinned to herself where he couldn't see it. At least he was conscious of her body.

He eyed the medical supplies, but didn't reach for them. 

"I'll do it." She announced in a tone that brooked any argument from him. She leaned slightly over him and to the side, reaching for the bottle, and the bandages. This caused some very nicely formed parts of her to contact his back. 

He started slightly and shivered involuntarily. She grinned again. Ninja "accidental" skin contact seduction technique #2 (she'd made that up) was working nicely.

"Yuffie..." He started.

"What's wrong, Vincent?" She asked innocently. 

Right.

Neatly boxed in, he blinked, then lapsed into uncomfortable silence. She had him trapped, she knew. He couldn't admit that their closeness bothered him because that would be acknowledging that her body affected him, and that would just about break his paradigm. She did a mental victory dance... she was finally starting to understand how his mind worked.

She picked up the bottle, bandages, and medical kit, (of course, she took her time) then set them next to her on the back of the couch. She reached into the kit and pulled out a pair of surgical scissors.

"Lift your arms up, please." She said quietly.

"I can-" He started.

"Not as tightly as I can, Vincent." She replied, a little to quickly. "You don't want it to come loose do you?"

He sighed, then lifted his arms. His fingertips accidentally brushed her knee as he lifted his injured arm awkwardly and he jumped again. She fought back a giggle. Damn it was cute when he was like this. 

He paused. "Sorry."

She grinned. "I'm not."

She could almost feel the silent waves of mortification flowing off of him. He lifted his arms the rest of the way, choosing to ignore her comment.

She deftly cut the bandages down his back, then carefully manuevered the dirty cloth away from the wounds. His chest and back were healing nicely, leaving only very small stains on the inside of the bandage, but his side stubbornly refused to close. The stitching hadn't popped, thank Leviathan, but it had bled profusely. She opened the bottle of disinfectant, put a bit of gauze to the opening and upended it, wetting it slightly. She reached down and began to swab his wounds with it.

She liked how his skin jumped slightly around the areas she touched. Since this wasn't an astringent antiseptic, and she was being very careful, she knew it wasn't because of the pain.

He sighed.

After swabbing the wounds, she carefully placed a fresh pad over the stitches and held it in place with the side of her leg so she could start the bandages. She didn't HAVE to do this, of course.

She could SWEAR that his eyebrow started to twitch, but she could never quite catch a glimpse of it.

Finally (much to her silent disappointment) she finished cleaning and dressing his wounds. She plopped down next to him on the couch and grinned sweetly up at him.

He looked completely placid, but she figured he was about ready to bolt.

"So... are you going to do me?" She asked archly.

He did a doubletake, blinking. "Excuse me?"

She lifted her injured arm and gave him an innocent look. "It's only fair, Vinnie."

She grinned again. "What did you THINK I meant?"

He stared at her for a moment.

She gave him an expectant look.

He broke eye contact first, picking up the medical supplies quickly. He efficiently laid them out in front of him like a master surgeon, the movement of his hands smooth and sure. He kept his face intent on what he was doing.

She shrugged out of the robe and artfully rolled the sleeve of the nightie back over the small wounds on her arm. In doing so, the other side of the nightie slipped a little, revealing a generous but not ENTIRELY unappropriate amount of her chest.

He shook his head without looking up at her, took hold of her wrist and stretched her arm in front of him. His fingers were gentle and strong.

Now it was her turn to shiver.

With his clawed hand he dapped daintily at her injury, swiftly disinfecting the area. He then bandaged her efficiently and quickly, closing up the medical kit when he was done. He set the supplies on the table next to the couch and started to stand up, but she laid a hand on his metal shoulder.

"Vincent, you've practiced enough today. Seriously, give it a rest. Besides, we need to talk."

He wouldn't look at her.

She refused to let this needle her. She had to be patient, and not lose her temper. If she lost her temper, he'd control the conversation until she gave up, not because he was that domineering, but because the conversation was too intimate for him. If she didn't give him anything to be cool and distant about, he had to be honest with her. It was how he worked.

Again, she felt a thrill of realization. She really WAS starting to understand him! The moment was alive, sexually charged, and it just seemed... right. She decided if she was going to lay her cards down, it was going to have to be now, before they got so busy with the business of chaining her to that damned throne and surviving the ensuing storm that they'd never have an opportunity to talk. She knew what would happen then. When she was safe and safely attached to Wutai at the hip, he'd disappear, and she wouldn't see him again. The damnable thing was, he'd think he was doing her a favor.

He wasn't just wrong, he was deluding himself.

"I've been essentially on my own since I was eight years old. My mother died when was barely five, and I'd already been in martial arts training since I could walk. Literally, since I could walk. My father sent me on that stupid quest when I turned eight, and I spent most of my time away from home."

He watched her silently. She took that as a sign to continue.

"I've been around the world so many times I can't count the number of times. As you may have noticed, I get sick at any kind of sea or air travel, so I tend to avoid it when I can. I walked most of the places I went, fighting monsters all the way. I've killed people in self-defense, and sometimes I regret the necessity, but I CAN kill someone when I have to. If I had to kill to survive, which I suspect, Vinnie, given your background and what little I know of it, is the reason you STARTED killing."

His expression flickered a bit, but he didn't interrupt.

"What I'm getting at is that you may be a lot more powerful than I am, Vincent, but I'm not exactly a babe in the woods. I might not be able to take you down, but I could hurt you very very badly, and if it really came down to that, I could at the very least get away from you. So from a realistic point of view, you could say that I'm not afraid of you because I can take care of myself."

He narrowed his eyes as though searching for a way through her logic. She didn't give him a chance.

"That's not really important, though. The real reason I'm not afraid of you is because I TRUST you. You've never let me down, and I've given you every damn reason in the book to drop me like a hot potato. You went through trauma, serious physical, emotional, and mental trauma that would make Cid, Barret, even Cloud shrivel up and die, and they all have people they can lean on to support them. You had NOBODY, and you came through a little dinged up and scratched, but still basically decent."

He opened his mouth to say something and she put a finger on his lips. He blinked.

"Decent, Vincent. Maybe not entirely good, maybe even a little cold, but not entirely bad either. Despite that, you've done some things that anyone would be proud of, hell, you helped save the world! It doesn't matter WHY you did it, Cloud gave you an opportunity to walk away, no questions asked, after you had already fought with Hojo, and you came back. That makes you a hero, at least in my book, and that's the only one that really counts anyway." She grinned a little.

He finally changed expression, his features turning a bit troubled. She continued.

"I know you don't think I'm a little girl, but I'm also not a blushing maiden, either. I might overreact at times, but that's because I came from Leviathan bedamned WUTAI... propriety capital of the world. I lost my virginity at the age of 13-"

"Yuffie..." He protested quietly.

"Shut up. I lost my virginity at 13 during a martial arts exercise involving a full extension over the head kick, and it didn't even hurt, it just bled alot. In fact, it freaked my dad out more than it did me... he freaked out so bad he fainted. I moved around alot so I haven't had a real boyfriend, but I'd be lying if I told you I never fantasized, and yes, Vincent, it may shock you, but I DO, upon occasion, masterbate. I enjoy it immensely."

She had to prevent him from leaving again. She kept her arm on his shoulder, stood up, and looked him in the eyes. He looked away at first, but she kept still and waited until he realized how ridiculous this was and met her gaze. She smiled very softly.

"Yes, I'm deliberately trying to shock you, poor proper Vincent Valentine, but I DO have a point. You seem to think I need to be protected from you, that I can't be trusted to make decisions for myself, and that while I'm not a child, I am too young to be involved in a serious relationship. Not only is that wrong, it's insulting, and it's just an excuse. I know you're attracted to me, and I know that you know I'm attracted to you."

She looked down for a moment, almost balked at what was the most important part of her plea, but that wouldn't work. She had to make him understand her sincerity, and there couldn't be any pretenses between them that he could hide in, and become comfortable. She didn't like taking him out of his comfort zone, but if she didn't, he'd never...

She looked up at him.

"I won't say I'm in love with you, Vincent... because sometimes I can't fucking stand you... and because sometimes I think I don't know you as well as I think I do. What I will say is... well, I'm falling in love with you. I know that's about the last thing you wanted to h- happen..." She faltered a bit, and a tear escaped her. She wished she could stop it, but she just couldn't. It was too raw, too real. She felt like she was pleading for her life.

In a way, she was.

"Yuffie..." He stared at the tear, and his features softened a bit.

"But I can't help it. You didn't try, you were just you... and in a way doesn't that m-make it more real?"

He continued to watch her.

"I know you haven't really said goodbye to Lucrecia, and that you still love her... I know that you're hurt, and sometimes you're lost, and that there are parts of you that scare you to death. I'm not asking for an ultimatum... I'm just... just asking for a... well, for a stay of execution."

She watched him, and the tear slid to her cheek bone and wobbled there, tremulous. He reached up and brushed it carefully back from her face, his expression soft, but still neutral. The sensation caused her to close her eyes. She sniffed.

"Lucrecia... said goodbye to me." He said quietly.

She opened her eyes and look at him.

"She loved me, but she needed to move on. To... to join the Lifestream. I realized... that I was holding her here. I never..."

He stopped, looked to the side and sighed, hesitating, but his hand cupped her cheek.

Finally he looked back into her eyes.

"I never wanted to hurt her. So... I let go. I was never very good at letting go, Yuffie. I cling to things because I've never had much... and because, frankly, I don't really deserve much."

Yuffie swallowed, and started to speak but he brushed his thumb over her lips and she stilled.

"My turn. Yes, I think you're too young for me. No... that's not right. Not too young. Too..." He searched for the right word.

It hurt.

"Too alive." He finished. "I'm dead inside, Yuffie. I didn't weather those years as well as you think. Cold... nothing but... dust, and memories... memories that I'm afraid were never as pure or beautiful as I thought they were, living them. I relive them every night, and they get a little more dark each time."

He closed his eyes. "Leave dead things where they lie, Yuffie. You can't bring back the dead. Trust me, I know."

"You aren't dead, Vincent." She whispered. "I'll show you."

Then she kissed him. Hard. So hard it almost hurt. It wasn't perfect. His head was slightly down, so she bonked her forehead against his somewhat harder than either of them was prepared for. In a way, the imperfectness of it was what salvaged it. The sudden pain of contact made him jerk his head up and inhale, opening his mouth, and when he did so, she was there... and she was full of him... and he was full of her...

And despite himself, his fingers curled from her cheek into her hair, and despite himself, his hand caressed the back of her neck tentatively, and she sighed...

They slowly drew apart, and she waited for a moment her eyes closed, letting it be perfect, not wanting to see the reality of his expression. His hand dropped from her neck, and she felt him pull back a little further. 

She opened her eyes slowly, and focused on his face.

He watched her, a somewhat confused expression on his visage, but his lips were slightly parted, and he looked, if anything, a little scared.

That would have to do, for now.

"I'd like..." She started. It came out a little breezy and she steadied herself with a deep breath. "I'd like to say we have time to take it slow... but we probably don't do we?"

He looked away.

She nodded. "We don't... but we have to."

He turned his expression to her, but lowered it, not meeting her eyes. Still, the gesture had meaning.

"You can such be a gigantic pain in the ass, Vinnie." She sighed.

He looked at her. "I know."

And despite herself, she laughed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 


End file.
